Condemned to Repeat
by Andrea Rimsky
Summary: It all seemed so permanent: progress, equality, family, loyalty. But now Jonathan is dead and the realm in chaos, and there's a traitor to be brought to a painful reckoning. There is no easy answer, no happy ending. The king is dead. Long live the king!
1. Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau

Tortall, its people, places, divinities, histories, environs, and all contained therein are the copyright property of Tamora Pierce.

"'Tis so strange that,  
Though the truth of it stands off as gross  
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it"  
-Henry V; II.ii.102

Thick, angry waves crashed into the cliff below the Swoop; a hard, mean wind slammed into its battlements. It was a rotten evening, and it suited Sir Alanna, Lady of Pirate's Swoop and Olau, and King's Champion of the realm of Tortall, perfectly. She was lonely. In only a few months, it would be a whole year since George had died. He had passed on quietly to the Black God, murmuring softly that his time had come none too soon, but they had both known that it was a lie. He hadn't been very old - there were many at court who were ten, fifteen, even twenty years or more his elder and still hale and nearly battle-ready. Faithful Coram was gone, too, and Geoffry of Meron had died on the northern border. She herself was beginning (though only barely beginning) to the feel the wear of many years of service. Damn old age! At least she still had her children, though Alianne was in the Copper Isles, and Thom and Alan at the University and the Palace respectively. Numair had told her only a week ago that Thom was doing brilliant work, that he would very likely be given his Mastery early and be elected to the College of Mages. Alan now served King Jonathan as squire, and would receive his own knighthood this Midwinter. And when she returned to Corus for that, she would be among friends.

But Alianne -- ah, she did not like to think too often on her daughter. The news was darker now from the Copper Isles. And they had all been so hopeful when they had visited that summer… She had been so proud of her daughter… But now, Alianne could barely hold her queen's capital: both the recently dispossessed nobility and the newly empowered natives fought the Crown. Alianne's letters were full of bewilderment and fear. She had been so sure of herself, so confident -- too confident, Alanna thought privately. And now she was floundering, shocked by the realization that she had made errors. Alanna wished on one part that her daughter would come home, but she was proud that Alianne stayed. Though she would have preferred that all her children serve her own realm, it was well enough that Alianne remain loyal to her adopted queen. Nevertheless, she was glad that two of her three children had followed paths that she herself could imagine and of which she could easily approve.

A great knock resounded on the castle's heavy door. For a moment, a single brief moment, Alanna expected to hear George's hearty call. Then she remembered. Who could be come on a night like this? Superstition said that the dead sometimes came back to call on the living, and here, certainly, was an appropriate time in the midst of a late autumn storm. She made herself refute that thought quickly - she would not fall into her dotage yet! No ghost of her dead husband was at the door. It was a messenger, perhaps, or a visitor. In such a time of peace her gates her open, and through them anyone who could account himself to the men at arms might ride freely. Perhaps Keladry of Mindelan, who had promised to come for a stay. A traveler could not choose the night of his arrival, after all.

"Open! In the king's name!" Came the call. Alanna signaled impatiently for one of her men to unbar the door. Really, life was impossible surrounded by mice like her servants. Couldn't they think for themselves at all? She vaguely knew that she had frightened most of her servants with her black temper over this past year, but she chose to ignore that fact in favor of feeling righteously indignant.

It was no faceless herald who entered, but an old friend. Alanna was reminded of another time, many years ago, when she had expected a stranger and found a well-known giant of a man. Raoul of Golden Lake (and now of Malorie's Peak as well) had greeted her gladly then, sweeping her up into a bear hug, but now he was solemn and almost distant. She dismissed the servant quickly.

"Raoul, what is the matter? Why do you look so?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "I bring terrible tidings, Alanna. I can't … I don't know how to break it - how to begin to tell you."

"No!" She imagined Alianne's body, limp and watery, washed up on a distant coast. No, Raoul had come from Corus. She could see Alan, then, crushed beneath the hooves of a warhorse in some freakish accident, or, more likely, Thom, his mind and body destroyed by a dangerous magical experiment. "No … not Thom … He isn't dead?"

The Knight Commander's face hardened. "Your son is alive, and… He is alive."

"Then who? Not Myles? Or Buri? Thayet?" She watched his face. "Not … Oh Goddess, no! Not the king? Not Jonathan?"

Raoul nodded. "The King is dead, may the gods rest him. Long life to King Roald." His tone was impassive and cold.

"But how? He wasn't old; he was in the best of health!"

"By treason, Alanna. Base, disgusting, unspeakable treason!"

Alanna's mind was spinning. "What do you mean? Who? How?"

"By … there is no way I can say it gently, Alanna. By your son. By Thom." He took a deep breath. "He is held as a traitor in the highest degree and an accessory to regicide. If not a regicide himself."

There was a ringing in her ears. Warm, fizzing panic bubbled up from her chest. "No, Raoul," she heard herself say. "What happened? Who killed… killed… killed Jonathan?"

Raoul only nodded.

This couldn't be true; it couldn't. There must be a mistake. Thom would never involve himself in treachery. He was too busy even to answer her letters. "I can't … he can't … No!" The room was spinning slightly, now, too. Or was it that she was dizzy? Raoul took her arm.

"Sit down, Alanna. Here." He tried to assist her to a low bench. "I know that the shock must be terrible. It's been a shock for us all. Everything. It's been …"

Was this how Hamnet and Eleanor of Tirragen had felt when the news had reached them of their son's treason? She broke out of his hold and stood up, albeit unsteadily. "I'm not a fragile grandmother, yet, Raoul! I'm not a weak woman who must be protected! I'm a knight - a soldier - and I'm younger than you are!"

He hastily attempted to mollify her. "Of course you aren't weak. But you've just heard the worst news anyone can hear; it isn't weakness to be thrown off balance."

"And you say that my son is a regicide?" She was angry, now. "He is a scholar and a mage, Raoul - not a criminal!" She turned her back on him.

"Your brother, too, was a 'scholar and a mage.'"

That stunned her. No. Thom couldn't have … he wouldn't have … it simply wasn't possible! "He didn't …" She slowly pivoted to face her visitor again. "He couldn't have brought _him_ back."

"Not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Your son shares his body with Roger of Conté, it seems. Their spirits are somehow fused together, and their combined power is magnified. I am no mage. Numair Salmalín can tell you more of it than can I." Raoul's tone was brusque and harsh. He added, more gently, "truly, Alanna, I am sorry." He seemed to be about to say more, but something stilled his words.

Alanna began to swear. Intermixed between her strings of obscenities were appeals to the Goddess and to Mithros, curses upon Roger and Numair Salmalín, even upon her son. Raoul did not stop her. Suddenly she broke off.

"Why not contact me immediately? Why not use magic to tell me?"

"The great mages are … otherwise occupied in containing this … thing … until it can be … fixed." His tone indicated that he did fully realize how inadequate this explanation would be to a magical adept. "It is more than a match for any of our mages alone. Even combined, they had not yet succeeded, when I left, in subduing it in any way that did not require their constant concentration. Also, R- the king thought it would be softer if you heard it from a friend and in person. And after all," he added bitterly, "I have born such messages to you before."

* * *

REVISED 12-4-05: added background on Aly.  



	2. Master Numair Salmalín

_Tortall, its people, places, divinities, histories, environs, and all contained therein are the copyright property of Tamora Pierce._

_"To try with it, as with an enemy,  
That had before my face murder'd my father -  
The quarrel of a true inheritor."_  
-Second Part of Henry IV; IV.iv.166

"Before our father's time, you were kept to the Mithran cloisters under the religious rule. It was intended that, in giving you the freedom to order yourselves, and in giving you freely the guardianship of the oldest and most dangerous texts, you, the most knowledgable of their uses and misuses, would best serve yourselves of them in both the advancement of knowledge and duty to the Crown. This has been, evidently, a mistaken assumption. Unhindered by outside constraints, you have run wild, and to disastrous consequences."

Silence greeted the king's speech. Numair Salmalín shifted uneasily in his seat. He knew Roald of Conté well, having watched him grow up, and having been his teacher at one time. The king was not given to pettiness and personal revenge. He would never use his power, whether temporal or magical, wantonly or arbitrarily. He was a rational and temperate man, to the point of being considered by some hampered by an unwillingness to offend. Even now, he was most certainly in full control of his faculties, in spite of his thinly veiled rage. Salmalín had always recognized that Roald could be much more terrible than he sometimes appeared, and he was now very sure that he did not ever want to be the object of this king's ire, particularly not if that ire were in the least bit justified. Unfortunately, he and all his fellow mages at the University most certainly were, and it most certainly was.

It was true that there was little oversight in the University. Students and professors did their research, worked on their projects, and the libraries were open to all. Of course, student projects did have to be approved by one's advisor, and, for Mastery, by the Dean himself. It wasn't as though there was no regulation at all. Just very little regulation. But after all, how was he, or anyone, supposed to have known that some brilliant, demented, young fool would actually raise the ghost of that damned black-magician Roger of Conté? Except, of course, that another brilliant, demented, young fool of the same name and lineage had done it a generation earlier. It would have been ridiculous - fodder for a players' piece - if the consequences hadn't been so dire, if Roger-Thom hadn't killed King Jonathan, and if he himself hadn't spent the past 30 or so hours frantically and increasingly sleeplessly trying to cage him in, for example. And he would be much less nervous if he hadn't been Thom of Pirates' Swoop's advisor, if he and Harailt hadn't enthusiastically approved Thom's forays into power transfers and necromantic residuals, if he hadn't only a week ago proposed that Thom be given Mastery early for his paper on the Sorcerous Sleep …

"Your Majesty may be assured," his frail colleague Lindhall Reed was saying, "that we will closely examine our curricula and methods of instruction."

He thanked the gods that he had never been very tempted by the prospects of death-magic. Daine had shown him - continued to show him every day, in fact - that life, and its diversity of magics, was far more wonderful and intricate. But there were many who were interested in death. Galina Fletcher had gone farther into it than even Thom, and she hadn't Raised anyone. Yet, he reminded himself gloomily. Thom had seemed perfectly innocuous too. Poor Galina: even had she no intentions of doing anything beyond the theoretical, she would never be allowed to continue her research now.

As Reed elaborated, Salmalín gazed at the men and women standing just behind the king. They were, for the most part, mages of the court, not associated directly with the University, but no less powerful for that. Late last night, (or was it early this morning?) they had been working frantically in tandem, with the easy camaraderie that is born of urgency and old friendship, and that comes of finally seeing success in the distance. Now, though, they seemed to be on opposite sides. They were solidly with the king, and he, he had somehow become the Other, the same unrestrained danger that had spawned that which they had been fighting together. He caught Lady Yukimi's eye as she stood rigidly beside her husband. (All of them, in fact, were standing rather rigidly, carefully masking their exhaustion behind faces of grief and upright duty.) There was no hint of the old friendliness that had existed between the two of them as she had explained Yamani magics to him in the look she gave now. In her homeland, he realized suddenly, he would probably be dead. He didn't think that Roald would dare execute the greatest mage in his service, or indeed, anyone, without very good reason. He did expect, however, a severe royal dressing down at the least, and probably another chastisement from Harailt as well. Would he even be permitted to teach again? He realized that the king was speaking once more.

"For these reasons, we revoke your Charter and place you under the direct oversight of the Crown." He ought to have known - they all ought to have known - that it would never last. No other monarch allowed the mages under his patronage so much latitude. It was disappointing, nonetheless.

Lindhall Reed raised a timid hand. "Will the Mages' Charter be ever reinstated by Your Majesty?" He asked, once acknowledged. "And what may we do to hasten that event?"

"When we have the assurances of your loyalty and competence in administering yourselves that we deem sufficient, we will consider the granting of new charter."

Which, as far as Salmalín understood it, was no answer at all.

"Master Salmalín, my Lord of Aili, attend us please." Roald paused only a moment to catch the eyes of a few of his nobles; these, with the Queen Dowager and Princess Shinkokami, followed their monarch's abrupt exit through a private door. The rest, whether from the Court or the University, trickled out more quickly than was their usual wont. Harailt of Aili, the Dean of the University, touched his colleague on the arm.

"Well, into the lion's den, I suppose." He received no answer. "Come, Numair, no one blames you. Certainly, you've discharged any debt you might have owed with your work yesterday and today. It's a damned shame His Majesty revoked your Charter." Harailt always talked too much when he was nervous.

As the Chair of the College of Mages, Salmalín knew he ought to be indignant over the loss of his department's autonomy. He would have been, had the king acted alone and without cause. But most of the Powers of Tortall were standing with him: Myles of Olau, Baird of Queenscove, Edelmar of Ybor, Vanget haMinch, Imrah of Legann, Gareth of Naxen, Gareth the Younger, and many others. Only Alanna the Lioness and Raoul of Goldenlake were absent. What was the use of indignance under such circumstances? Sir Myles might have protested for academic freedom - and probably had - but the others were solidly with the king. "It wasn't unexpected. He might have taken it from the whole University."

"There would have been an outcry if he had. But the king's a reasonable man and a just."

His companion grunted a pensive assent. It was very strange, Salmalín reflected as they passed through the doorway, how easy it was to talk about "the king." It was as if Roald had always reigned, or, more likely, as if Jonathan still did. Roald was very like his father now: the clear blue eyes and dark hair, the tall, proud bearing, the aura of power and authority that he had seemed to lack when he was simply the heir apparent. It was very easy to forget that he wasn't Jonathan. Or, perhaps, that was simply the way of kings: that they all ran together into one distant figure.

That one figure looked at him sternly now. "I understand that you were successful in subduing him, Numair?"

"Yes, Majesty. Any magic he tries to use against our barrier will only be absorbed into it, and thus make it stronger. We couldn't, however, separate the two… We couldn't separate the ghost of Roger of Conte from the, well, the ghost, if you will, of Thom. Now that he no longer an immediate problem, I will do my best to find a way to do so. With Your Majesty's permission," he added ironically.

Roald ignored the gentle sarcasm; only a slight roll of his eyes indicated that he had caught it. "That seems a reasonable plan. Have you anything to add, Harailt?" The dean shook his head. "Duke Baird?"

"If I may, my liege." The old Chief Healer was one of the few powerful mages who had not been in on the working, though he had replenished all of their strengths multiple times over its course. "How long will your barrier hold, Master Numair?"

"Theoretically, of course, it should last indefinately. Practically, however, I should suggest that we deal with the, ah, the greater problem as soon as we are able."

The king nodded. "Uncle Gareth?"

The elderly duke shook his head. "This is all beyond my small knowledge of magic."

"Mother?"

The Queen Dowager said nothing, but her eyes remained coldly fixed on Salmalín. Had he no more friends at Court? Was one instance of gross stupidity, one mistake, enough to destroy him in all of their eyes? Well, yes, he answered himself, if that one mistake ended in the king's death. What he wouldn't give to be able to go back and do it over - what anyone of them wouldn't give, he supposed. But there was no going back and no fixing, and now they all believed him to be reckless and over-zealous in the pursuit of knowledge, someone who cared more for the unraveling of the darkest secrets of the gods than for the good of society.

That, at least, he had to fix now. He could not spend the rest of his career gradually winning back their trust. And if he could not work freely here - Carthak was the only other place with such facilities and libraries. Emperor Kaddar's new policies of openness notwithstanding, he could not bear a return to stifling Carthaki ceremonies of deference. Too, he remembered suddenly, Kalasin of Conté was empress there. If he could not face her brother, he would not be able to face her, either. And Daine would never agree to live somewhere where neither humans nor animals could be sure of freedom. Moreover, he didn't want to leave Tortall. He liked and respected Roald; he had many friends here. He was happy, or, would be happy if he could regain a place in their eyes. Slowly, he knelt.

"Please forgive me, Majesty; I beg you." He didn't dare look to see if their expressions had changed. On the periphery of his vision, he could see Harailt kneeling with him.

"Truly, Sire. You spoke rightly: more vigilance on our part could have prevented this." If any of the younger scholars had were here, Salmal�n thought, they would be furious. But there were limits; one had to abase onesself sometimes, had to affirm certain things in order to keep in favor with one's noble masters. Not that he didn't mean what he said: the ability to tell whether a man spoke from his heart or no was common; he had trained Roald in it himself.

"I ought to have been more attentive. I don't know that Your Majesty can pardon my fault, but I am sorry for it. If there is anything that is required of me, as restitution… or as penance…" He did mean it, even as he devoutly hoped that his life would not be required.

"There is no restitution you can make that will bring my father back." The king's words caught a little in his throat, but they were slow and measured; they did not give a hint of either pardon or condemnation. "And you have done everything - and express willingness to continue to do everything - within your powers to see justice done on his murderer. I cannot ask anything more of you." He motioned for the two mages to rise.

"But can you forgive me, Roald?" Salmalín whispered, chancing the familiarity as he caught his king's hand. "Can you ever forgive me?"

The kingly façade softened a little into that of a young man with far too many burdens for his years. "I know that you are not to blame, and I belive that I can trust you." His voice was raised a little, so that the entire room could hear. He added, more softly, "and I can try to forgive."

And that, Salmalín realized, was as much as he could hope for. Gods protect him when the Lioness arrived.

* * *

REVISED 1-3-05: altered the dialogue between Roald and Numair

REVISED 26-4-04  



	3. Alan of Pirate's Swoop

_Everything Copyright Tamora Pierce._

"_I cannot weep; for all my body's moisture  
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:  
Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;"_  
-Third Part of Henry VI; II.i.

King Jonathan's face was serene and dead; his arms peacefully crossed over his breast. After he had cleaned the king's body, and washed it in scented water, Alan had dressed him as if for battle. His mail shimmered dully and his crowned helmet glinted in the barely perceptible glow of the Stasis spell Alan had placed (and Duke Baird had pronounced flawless) to arrest decay. It was a squire's duty, his most terrible duty, to prepare his lord's corpse for burial. Although very few young men found themselves serving their masters in this capacity - many knights did not take squires, and in this modern age, even a war might claim few of name - Alan was no stranger to the task. He must be the most unlucky squire in the history of Tortall, he thought, to bury two knight-masters in his four years. No, there was bound to be one who had buried three, of whom Sir Nealan of Queenscove could tell. Alan felt a sudden queasiness at his own flippancy. It was not a gay matter at all. The gods must have marked him with a curse that he would bring to all whom he served.

A Scanran arrow had taken Sir Geoffry of Meron in the gut - not even during the recent war, but in a skirmish well after the official peace had been won. Alan had done everything within his small healing skill, but the knight had faded too fast. By the time the boy whom Alan had detailed to run for help returned with a real Healer, Sir Geoffry had passed into the hands of the Black God. He had been numb as he had neatly cleaned and bandaged Sir Geoffrey's wound, and washed and arranged his body. There had been a haste through it all: there was no time for elaborate obsequies in a rough battle-camp. And the Scanrans had attacked the camp that night; everyone had been needed to drive them off. When he finally had time to mourn, the whole event seemed distant.

He had felt guilty then, that he had not had the time to properly mark Sir Geoffrey's passing, but now he longed for a distraction. If only he had a powerful Gift; all such were engaged in sorting through the tangled web of magic that bound the ghost of Roger of Conté to his brother.

His brother. No one had said anything yet to him, but it was only a matter of time. They would all shun him, probably. And he had seen them whispering in the halls. About him, surely. About the traitor's brother. Why _had_ Thom done it? Why? Hadn't he listened to Mother's stories? Hadn't he known the terrible fate that had befallen her brother, his namesake? He looked down at the king. Didn't Thom feel bound to serve the Crown loyally? Didn't he realize that fealty bound him no less because he was a mage and not a knight?

Mother would be arriving soon, and she would be angry. She had saved the king's life when she was his squire; she had thwarted Roger of Conté's treason when she was much younger than he was now. His quarters had adjoined King Jonathan's, she would say. How could he not have done something? More, he had been in the same city as Thom: How could he not have noticed what his brother was doing? How could he have been so oblivious, so out-of-touch with the world? He imagined Mother, her short stocky frame blazing with fury, demanding these answers, and many more.

"You aren't worthy to be my son," she shouted at him. "No Gift, no intelligence, no courage: you're a failure and a disgrace to me!" Because he was a failure. He had begun his training three years late, and, although he worked hard and even occasionally excelled, there were always those who were better than he. Even though he had won the prize for swordsmanship his fourth year as a page, it, like everything else, didn't come easily, the way it seemed to do for the others. He had to make himself drill, and his mind wandered unless he forced it to concentrate. That prize had been due to luck, anyway, not to any real skill.

He thought he had accepted that he would never measure up to Mother, but now, he realized, the failure ran deeper and more dangerous. Sir Geoffrey was dead. The king was dead. Never mind what Duke Baird had told him, and Sir Myles, and Sir Gareth, and all the others, that it had happened too quickly, that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it, and that his raising the hue and cry so immediately had probably saved other lives. Mother would have saved King Jonathan.

Alan was shaking. He rested his forehead on the icy stone bier, but his teeth continued to chatter. When he looked up, he was startled to see his old training master, Sir Padraig ha Minch. He hurriedly started to rise, but the old knight shook his head, coming himself to kneel beside him. Alan waited, frozen, as Sir Padraig bowed his head in prayer before examining his former page.

"Perhaps you can guess why I'm here, Alan?" He said it gently.

"N-no, sir. I mean, I-I suppose you came to pray for the king, sir."

The knight smiled a little, sadly. "I doubt that the dead have any real need of our prayers. The gods will not be moved to change their doom by a few mortal supplications. King Jonathan was a great man, Alan, a great man and a just king. Mithros will judge him favorably, I think. No, I did not come here only to pray."

Alan wondered if he was supposed to answer. "Sir?"

"You know that you will be asked to testify when your brother is tried for treason, Alan."

He had been trying not to think about it. "Yes, sir."

Sir Padraig peered closely into his eyes. "Did you have any idea? Did he tell you anything of what he was planning, beforehand?"

His heart thudded into the ground. Here it was: the conversation he had been dreading. He wanted to scream: 'Of course I didn't know! Don't you think I would have said something? I'm not ignorant, after all! I knew who Roger of Conté was and what he'd done! I would have stopped it if I had known!' But he only shook his head silently, as his lips formed, but did not voice, his response of, "no, sir."

Sir Padraig nodded. "I thought as much. You were not very close to your brother, were you, Alan?"

"No, sir. He has always been very busy with his studies." Afraid that his answer was too pat, he hastily continued, "I see - saw - him sometimes, sir, and we're - we were - always friendly. I never dreamed he would …"

"No, I know you didn't. It's a terrible thing, Alan, a terrible thing." The older man was pensive for a moment. "And it isn't your fault. You do know that?"

"Yes, sir." But Alan would not meet his eyes.

"Look at me, boy," the knight ordered, and, as Alan obeyed, he continued. "You aren't a mage, Alan. Oh, I know, you've some of the Gift, but it isn't your study. You're a squire, a warrior, soon you'll be a knight. Your duty to the Crown is in your sword-arm, not your magic. There was nothing you could have done for the king. You could not have saved him. Do you understand me, Alan?"

"Yes, sir." Mother would have been able to save the king.

"Now there are some," the training master went on, as if reading his thoughts, "who might have done some good there - I do understand that. The Lioness, for one. Perhaps Master Salmalín." He scowled. "But these are far and few between, Alan. We expect a great deal from our young men, but we do not expect them all to be heroes. And even your mother, redoubtable as she is … I don't know if even she could have saved the king. It was a late-night attack, instantaneous, and the magic - well, I've spent all morning being told by the best mages we have (though I don't know that I trust them to know what's what) that it was absolutely unknown. You must not feel guilty," he added sharply. "For all the gods, pull yourself together, boy!"

Alan shuddered, but then drew himself up. "I'm sorry, sir."

"You aren't alone, Alan," Sir Padraig said, more gently. "But the world has not stopped turning for King Jonathan's passing. We can mourn, and we can wish things had been different; however, we all have our duties to fulfill. And you cannot fill yours while you drown yourself in undeserved guilt."

"But I haven't got a knight-master," Alan muttered.

"What's that?"

"I haven't got a knight-master, sir," Alan said, "I don't know what my duties are, now."

"Aren't you a noble, Alan?"

"Yes, sir." His father had been common-born, but Mother's family went all the way back. It was a rhetorical question, anyway: commoners couldn't train for their shields.

"Then act like one. You shouldn't need a direction for every single action you take. I had hoped that I trained my boys better than that. How can you lead a rabble of peasants if you can't lead yourself?"

Alan hung his head. Lord Raoul trained his squires to command… "Is there anything you need done, sir? As I don't have any formal duties just now?"

"That's better. As it happens, I cannot supervise my younger pages with their staff-work this afternoon. And, Alan, they may miss their academic classes as far as is necessary, but their combat training must not lie fallow. So, come on." He got up, and Alan tentatively followed him out.

"Sir?"

"I'm sure you can manage a double-handful of ten and eleven year-olds," the knight said over his shoulder.

* * *

REVISED 26-4-05: added one line of dialogue 


	4. Lord Raoul of Malorie's Peak

"_That's more than we know."_  
"_Ay, or more than we should seek after;  
For we know enough if we know we are the king's subjects."_  
-King Henry V; IV.i.131

The inn that housed Raoul and Alanna that night, like the one the previous night, was nearly empty of guests. Few had business this late in the year, and, as the news of King Jonathan's death spread from Corus (official word had reached Pirate's Swoop only hours after Raoul's arrival) many who might have had reason to travel thought better of it. The king had been beloved and well known to his people, and his violent and sudden death was a shock to his country. Who knew what disasters might follow? There were rumors that the capital was in ruins, that Prince Roald and his brothers were dead as well, that such terrors were in store that would make the events of Jonathan's coronation seem as nothing.

The innkeeper herself, a stout and sensible woman, a widow of twenty years, as she informed her exalted guests, gave little credence to such rumors.

"There was a messenger what passed through some days back, a herald, you might say," she explained. "And he told us true, that the king was dead (may the gods all rest him!) and of treason, but he didn't say naught of earthquakes and fires and famine and such. Yer Lordship could tell me more the truth of that," she said, eyeing Raoul respectfully, but with the practiced gaze of one who knew a valuable source of gossip when she saw it.

"There is no such danger," he announced curtly. He was in no mood for gossip. They had ridden hard to get here, and had to be on to the capital the next day, and he was tired. Too, his holiday, if such it might be called, was ending. Shocked and stunned populace or no, a new king was in a perilous position and had to be protected; policy had to be formed, and quickly. As Knight Commander of the King's Own, the former was principally his responsibility, and the input on the latter his duty as a vassal. Nevertheless, rumors would have to be quelled if they didn't want to see a civil war once they had dealt with the treason. He had done as much in each village he had passed through both to and from Pirate's Swoop. "I was in Corus when the king was murdered, and the murderer apprehended. The Lioness and I -." Everyone turned to murmur and stare at his companion, who still sat in the shadow, and whom they had assumed by height to be the lord's squire. "- Received word last night that all is completely under control. There will be no earthquake, no civil war, no conflagration."

"But…but what about Scanra?" Called a young voice. Although it housed few travelers that night, the inn was crowed with local men and boys, for whom it was still, as it always had been, a place to meet and exchange news

A tall youth with bright red hair was pushed forward. "Aye, that's our Jonathan, Yer Lordship!" Several voices said proudly. "Brightest one he'd ever taught, as said the priest."

Jonathan looked positively terrified to be facing possibly the two most redoubtable knights of the realm. But Lord Raoul nodded gently at him, and the Lioness, who had pushed back her hood and come to stand with her companion, had what might be construed as a kindly look behind her stern eyes. "Beggin' Yer Lordship's pardon," he said, touching his forelock and looking quickly from the ground to their faces and back down again, "An' Yer Ladyship's," he added. "I was, well I did wonder if the Scanrans might war again, seeing as how the king's dead and all."

It was the Lioness who answered. "They might," she said. "But we beat them once, and we can beat them again. And, they won't be nearly so organized this time, if they decide to attack us on the news that King Jonathan is dead."

"Unless they be the ones what killed him," someone said ominously.

Alanna looked at Raoul and swallowed, briefly closing her eyes. He shook his head at her and stepped forward himself. He could take this burden from her, at least. "The Scanrans had nothing to do with the king's murder," he said. "Nothing. Nor did the Carthakis, Tusaine, the Copper Isles, or anyone else. The treason came from within Tortall."

Alanna took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for the admission of something terrible. She shifted her weight and crossed her arms over her breast. "It was a rogue mage," she said. "A mage from the Royal University. He - He raised a spirit from the dead, and it killed the king."

There was a silence, and then a clamor of talking. This was news. A mage from the Royal University! A spirit! There were some who still held that he must have been in the pay of the Scanrans, or some such foreigners. After all, hadn't there been some business with spirits during the last war? But some of the older men remembered old King Roald's death and the circumstances of Roger of Conté's return from the dead. "It don't go trusting sorcerers," they said, shaking their heads wisely. "It ain't right, what they do at that un-i-vers'ty. Magic just to do magic? That don't be what the gods intended."

The Lioness and Lord Raoul moved away quietly to sit in their corner. The villagers did not ask them anything more. If such great folk had deigned to share a bit of news, it was well and enough; there was no good in arousing their anger with questions. Besides, as some whispered, heroes and nobles felt the same as commoners did, and those knights had known the king well. "It's not right to bother in their grief, an' it be much greater than our'n," Jonathan's father told him, when the lad would have asked the Lioness for a tale of the Scanran war.

Alanna put her face in her hands. "Oh Gods, I've a headache!" She rubbed her forehead. "I can't do this Raoul. I can't." She lowered her voice so that it was barely a whisper. "I can't deny my own child."

Raoul said nothing. He wasn't sure that there was anything he could say. This emotional business was why he had avoided women for so many years. Things were much simpler, much clearer, among men - among warriors. And it unnerved him to see a close friend, who had always been as frank and decided as he in such situations, succumbing to what he couldn't help but still think of as "womanish" sentiments.

"My oldest, my firstborn son, my heir," she continued. "You can't understand how I'm torn. You and Buri haven't any children."

"Yet." A thin, tired smile played about Raoul's mouth. "But given eight months or so..."

Alanna looked up. "You …I … Congratulations! Or, rather," she added, sinking back into melancholy, "I should offer condolences. I wish he had never been born!"

Raoul was a little alarmed, but only a little. It was relieving, in fact, to hear Alanna echoing his own sentiments. Nevertheless, he didn't think she meant it seriously, and he certainly couldn't comment so. "Surely…"

"Wouldn't it have been better?" Her tone was bitter. "He betrayed me, Raoul. Apart from Jonathan - though any mother ought to hate a child who had committed High Treason - he was disloyal to me! He betrayed me when he did … that thing. Do you think he hated me?" Her eyes dug into Raoul's. "Did he despise me, and decide to hurt me the worst way he could?" She began to laugh, low, but almost hysterically. "Twice I killed Roger. Once for justice; once in vengeance for my beloved fool of a brother. I suppose I'll have to kill him again now - for my son!"

"Alanna, Alanna, calm down," Raoul urged. Now he really was alarmed. Alanna couldn't be losing her mind over this! She couldn't be. For himself, he didn't think that the choice between a traitor of son and his king would be very difficult, but, he reminded himself, he was not yet a father. And a woman was, he added mentally, praying that Alanna never knew that he thought it, different from a man in these emotional matters - a woman was more sentimental about her children - even if that woman was the most renowned knight in the realm. For himself, his loyalty had moved imperceptibly fast from Jonathan to Roald, but he recalled perfectly his duty to his old school friend and king. Come what might, he would not forgive Thom of Pirate's Swoop, whatever Alanna's final conclusion.

"I'm perfectly calm. Perfectly." She took a few deep breaths, as if willing herself to make her statement true. "But I love him, Raoul. Gods all help me, but I'm his mother. It would have been easier if he had died..." Her voice was almost pleading. "I don't know what to do, what to think."

"Have you -" Raoul hesitated. As one to whom the gods had never vouchsafed a word, or, indeed, any sign, he was reticent of speaking of such intimate matters with those who had been contacted by divinity. He lowered his voice further. "Have you asked your Goddess?"

Alanna gave him a crooked, bitter smile. "When Aly went missing, when George died: everyone always asks me if I've consulted Her. As if She watches to make everything right for me! Of course I've prayed," she whispered fiercely. "Every night since you brought me the news, I've prayed that I'll know which way to turn. And I don't. I think I know, briefly, and then I doubt myself."

"If it's any comfort," Raoul said, "I think he was more of a fool than a conscious traitor. I don't think he intended any malice…" It wasn't any comfort, and he knew that she knew it.

"I know just where I should stand, were it someone else who had been the fool." Alanna said. Her voice was raspy and harsh. "I know just where I stand on Numair Salmalín's foolishness. I'll make sure he shares the same fate," she said, suddenly fierce, "if my Thom dies. When my Thom dies!" Her eyes were wide, and she was gasping for breath amid silent, dry sobs.

Raoul was suddenly aware that it was almost impossible that their conversation had not been overheard. True, the peasants were carefully keeping their distance, and the din in the common room was nearly unbearable, but it was unlikely that someone had not seized that chance to listen to his betters' concerns. And Alanna was overtired and overwrought. She would murder him when she realized how much weakness he had let her show in front of him, let alone in front of so many strangers - so many commoners. He shuddered a bit. Murder was no longer a joke, even to oneself.

"Better go up," he said softly to Alanna, rising and gently nudging her to follow. "We want to make Corus as early tomorrow as we can."

With a final shivering breath, she got up, pulling her cloak down and around her. Although they moved as unobtrusively as possible to the corridor, they could not avoid the sudden silence and staring that accompanied their exit. Raoul allowed Alanna to precede him as they followed the maid slowly up the narrow stairs.

"Good night," he said as he left her at the door to her room. Alanna did not answer, but entered, and closed her door gently. Listening, Raoul could hear soft noises, and then muttering. A spell? A prayer? After a little while more of waiting, he moved on to his own chamber.

* * *

REVISED:  
16-2-05  
6-6-05 - Changed "Jeremy" to "Jonothan."  
12-6-05 -- Changed "Jonothan" to "Jonathan."  



	5. Lady Yukimi of Queenscove

(©Tamora Pierce)

"_The slave, a member of the country's peace,  
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots  
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,  
Whose hours the peasant best advantages."_  
-Henry V; IV.i

The only thing Lady Yukimi of Queenscove really wanted to do was to sleep, and maybe cry a little to herself once alone in the privacy of her own room. However, she was not one to shirk her duties. It would be shameful to go comfortably to bed while her husband (and he had worked at least as hard as she) was still serving his king. Neither was her own service done. It had been a long day of attending Princess Shinkokami as the king met with his great lords, but the princess had especial need of her companion tonight. If it was a terrible and frightening thing to live through the murder of a great and noble king, it was made a thousand times worse when that king was one's revered father-in-law as well.

And if it was one's own father! Poor Prince Roald. King Roald, as she ought to say it. He was another who would not sleep tonight. This afternoon, Numair Salmalín had revealed that he did not think there was any precedent for separating the souls of the two traitors. He himself did not know any way of doing it. And this after as much as allowing Thom of Pirates' Swoop to raise ghosts! She was sure that he was sorry he had done so, but his contrition was a bit late, however strong its sincerity. She vaguely knew that Master Salmalín was a Tyran who had trained in Carthak. That made her a little more secure. She had accustomed herself to Tortallan ways such that they were no longer so strange - she could even be comfortable in a western-style gown now - but _everyone_ knew that the Tyrans were little better than pirates and that the Carthakis were utterly decadent and barbaric. That explained Master Salmalín's recklessness, and she could rest assured that such foolishness was not the norm in her adopted country. Too, most of the Tortallan mages she knew were very sensible. Her own husband and his father, for example. They were perfectly ethical, upstanding, and loyal. Lady Alanna as well. How unfortunate for her! But that, Yukimi could not help but think, was what came of marrying a common thief. True the baron had always _seemed_ to be a good man, but he had evidently been deficient in his son's moral education. At least Squire Alan appeared to have his mother's good qualities.

In the next room, King Roald was even now wrestling to master the Dominion Jewel on the advice of Master Numair. "It is yours, Sire, and must not be neglected, even if it were not the only thing I know that may work in this case," the mage had said. And so Roald struggled, alone, though several other mages, her own husband among them, stayed by to assist him as they might. Yukimi was a mage of no mean power herself; she would have liked to be with the king as well, observing the jewel's rare magic. Her duty, however, was here.

There was an uneasy and tense silence in the room. Queen Thayet sat in a chair by the fire; her younger daughter, the Princess Lianne, knelt beside her, her head cradled in her mother's lap. She no longer cried, but her cheeks were shiny and her mother's dress was marked with wet patches. The Dowager queen stared into the tapestry on the far wall, absently stroking her daughter's hair. Princess Shinkokami knelt on her mother-in-law's other side, too polite to intrude on their grief. There was nothing to say: the first shock of the tragedy had not even begun to pass away. There were no condolences that could be made, but to speak of anything else would have been callous, even disrespectful to King Jonathan, this soon after his death. Tonight, his warriors kept vigil over their king; the women of his family would not intrude there. So here they all kept vigil for Roald.

It was dim - no one had called a servant to light the evening candles, and the fire was gradually dying. Darkness was said not to be good so near a death, particularly not near the death of an important man. Spirits, many of them malevolent, clustered around such an event, preying on sorrow and darkness, and bringing more misfortune upon the house. The Princess's young children, now asleep in the nursery, would be particularly susceptible. Silently, Yukimi rose. She had to stand on her toes and reach above her head to cup her hands around the wick of the first taper on the heavy candelabrum. She blew gently up to it, summoning at the same time a spark. When she had lit each of the candles, she crossed to the other candelabra, until all three bore bouquets of dancing flames. Then she quietly returned to her place at her mistress's side.

"Thank you for giving us light, Yuki," Princess Shinkokami whispered.

Yukimi bowed. "I am honored if my small service has pleased Your Highness."

And then silence resumed its reign.

There was a cautious knock on the door, which subsequently opened. Sir Nealan of Queenscove slipped in and bowed. Princess Lianne sat up, and the Queen Dowager raised her head.

"Do you bring us news, Sir Nealan? Has Roald succeeded?"

"Ah, no, Your Majesty; the king is still working at it. It is a slow, but he is making progress. This is what he sent me to tell you."

"Then my lord is well?" Asked Shinkokami. "And he is able to speak with you while he is mastering this thing?"

Yukimi's husband was somewhat taken aback. "Why, yes, certainly, Your Highness. He is not in a trance, and it is not dangerous - only long and wearying."

"Ah. I see." Yukimi could tell that her mistress would have liked to go to her husband, if only to sit by him. A Tortallan, however, used to more blatant emotional displays, could never tell this, and the princess would not dream of implying that she had tired of attending Queen Thayet.

"He is as powerful as King Jonathan; -" Nealan glanced quickly at the queen as if in apology - "but we - that is, Master Salmalín and my father - think that the Dominion Jewel meant to recognize him only when he was crowned. His right is still there, however, and he can establish - he is establishing - his power over it."

"And do you return to Roald, now?" Queen Thayet asked.

"If it is not Your Majesty's will that I remain." Her husband was ever the gallant!

"No, no. My son has more need of you than do I. Two of my daughters are with me, and your own Lady Yukimi as well. But not my other sons," she said suddenly. "Liam is in the North, riding patrols with his knight-master," she mused. "I wonder if he even knows what has happened. And Jasson-" Queen Thayet smiled slightly and shakily - "he stays in the pages' wing. He wishes to be treated like all the other boys who mourn their king together. He says - Oh, it sounds maudlin, I know, but spare a widow and a mother her small comforts. - He says … that … it is what his … his father would have wanted." The queen's voice, which had been breaking throughout her recital, squeaked out, and she covered her face with one hand, keening. Shinkokami took the other hand and bowed her head over in silent sympathy. "Tell that to Roald," Thayet said when she had recovered - it will give him strength to know how strong his brother is in his duty, I think."

"Of course, Majesty," Nealan replied softly. He swallowed hard. Yukimi wished she could comfort her husband; he looked to be drowning in all the grief that surrounded him. He bowed "By Your Majesty's leave? And Your Highnesses'?" At the nodded assents of the queen and Princess Shinkokami, he left. The door barely made a sound as he closed it.

And the night wore on.


	6. Veralidaine Sarrasri Salmalìn

_"Look to my chattels and my moveables.  
Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay.'  
Trust none;  
For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,"  
Henry V; II.iii.49-52  
_

For the first time in the many years of her stay in the Royal Palace, Veralidaine Sarrasri-Salmalìn felt confined. It couldn't be that the rooms allotted to herself and her husband were insufficient for their young family. Some of Numair's colleagues at the University had much larger households and made do with similar apartments. And she had always felt perfectly secure in letting Sarralyn run about in the central court with the children of other scholars, clerks, and similar palace dependents. There was always someone to watch her children on the not infrequent occasion of both her and Numair's absence. On the edge between the palace and the rest of Corus, very near the University itself, they were far from the wings that housed knights and squires, and from the places where the great men and women of the realm usually congregated. It was an altogether safe and pleasant arrangement, where both she and Numair were in close proximity to those who required their services, and yet far enough away that they could bring up their children in relative peace from the intrigues and hard realities of Court.

Lately, however, those hard realities had been creeping closer and more closer. Of course she had explained to Sarralyn exactly what was happening, as far as the little girl could understand it. Why Daddy had had to rush off in the middle of the night (though this was not an uncommon occurrence) and why Mummy was crying; why they all were to wear black armbands. She and her husband had decided, however, to shield their young daughter (little Rikash was barely old enough to be aware of the goings-on, let alone ask questions about it) as far as possible from the details. Veralidaine herself did not know exactly what had happened that terrible night, but she knew that she could not possibly explain it all to a child of five. Sarralyn knew that a "wicked man" had killed King Jonathan, and Veralidaine considered the shock of death to be enough for her daughter without the added complications of necromancy, ghosts, and her father's possible, though unwitting, complicity. It had been hard enough to get her to bed even with the promise that the "bad man" was safely locked up; Veralidaine shuddered to imagine dealing with Sarralyn's fears upon hearing that a mage like her father could summon up, and had summoned up, a malevolent spirit that could very well have destroyed them all.

Before becoming a mother, and even a few years ago, Veralidaine would have been shocked at the very idea of hiding something from one of her children. Hadn't Ma and Grandpa let her see the world in all of its brutality from the earliest age? But now, well, there was plenty of time to grow up, she said to herself. Let a child have her innocence a little longer. But really, she couldn't imagine a time when she might not be there to protect Sarralyn and Rikash. They wouldn't have to fend for themselves. But she felt uneasy, nonetheless. Accidents can happen, she reminded herself now. You can't foresee what will pass, and you're not doing her any favor by keeping her ignorant. She had decided yesterday that she would have to take Sarralyn aside and confess that she had kept part of the truth from her. And yesterday had become evening, evening had become morning, and morning midday. Tonight, she promised herself. Tonight, I'll explain everything.

Because Sarralyn was no stupid child. Why, this morning, when she had come home in tears because Mistress Sievers had refused to let Hilda and Erik play with her, she had clearly not been satisfied with her mother's hedging justification that Mistress Sievers was simply afraid of magic, even with the consequent concession that magic had been involved in the king's death. ('But why, Mummy? Everyone knows that Daddy is a mage.')

Mistress Sievers… It had been all Veralidaine could do not to burst out when Sarralyn revealed that betrayal. Why, she and Tove Sievers had been friends since the Salmalìns had moved to the compound. Veralidaine had depended absolutely -- still did depend, for that matter -- on her excellent advice and expertise in child-rearing when Sarralyn was an infant. And if the small Scanran community had lived on the edge of the blade since before the most recent war? If one still heard, from all social strata, mutters about "ridding the realm of the damned raiders?" (And, more often, cruder, less sophisticated variations on the same: Sir Nealan had coined that one as a joke and a parody of Scanran declamatory style while legitimately engaged in such ridding from the Scanran Marches, but it had stuck around in educated circles in reference to anyone of such descent.) If Nikita Sievers had barely been able to keep his clerical job during the war due to a heavy accent and still feared for it? She had never considered dropping Tove's friendship because of the taint of Scanran association. And Roald had openly said before the court that he did not hold Numair responsible. Had openly proclaimed his (somewhat qualified, she had to admit) confidence in him. Besides that, she and her husband were two of the best-known commoners in the realm. They were familiar with many of the greatest nobles of the kingdom. There could never be any shame or danger from connections with them.

Mistress Rouse, the elderly mother of one of Numair's colleagues in the College of Healing, had explained the Sievers' circumstances again, in great detail, when she had dropped in that afternoon, ostensibly to help. "We all do what we must, Veralidaine," she had said. "But you know, dear, no one blames you. We are all absolutely with you and the children." Veralidaine had never been a "dear." Not when she had been eight months pregnant with Sarralyn, having to adapt her form every other minute to keep pace with her infant's changes. Not when Numair had been obliged to leave to oversee refugee camp construction days after the child's birth, leaving her alone to deal with her shapeshifting daughter. Then, it had always been acknowledged that she had a vital role in the realm's internal and external defenses, that she was perfectly competent and capable in dealing with everything that came up and with the vagaries of motherhood. But now, she had suddenly become the poor young wife, saddled with two little children and a negligent husband to boot. Yes, Numair had practically been living in the University libraries ever since It had happened. Yes, she had barely seen him. But he was not a criminal!

And she was not planning to desert him. Veralidaine's cheeks burned as she remembered Mistress Rouse's parting words. "If you ever should need a place for you and the children, we'll always welcome you; and Polydore has plenty of connections at the Palace if you're in danger that way." The nerve of that woman! If she had seen Numair that night: in shock, rushing off in his nightshirt! And two days later, returning; unshaven, dirty, gray-faced and staggering; bawling like a child because only when his work was done for a time and the kingdom was secure could he think about the death of his friend and his king.

Although, busy as he was, he might try to find some time for his home. They had agreed to split household chores, to allow them both to pursue their work equally. Of course, as the more importantly placed of the two, he bore a little less than an equal half-share. Numair did have more to do: more research, more teaching, more work. But recently, well, ever since King Jonathan's death, he had barely been present at all, and never in condition to help with homely duties. Oh, she had managed before, and she could manage now -- she was managing, by practically giving up on her own work these past days -- but she found it no easier to cope than he when a stable pillar of existence was suddenly torn down. It was hard to spend night and day cooking, cleaning, mending, and caring for children with no help and the burden of national tragedy. So she hadn't, really, and it showed. Ma would be shocked if she could see the state of the room that served her family as kitchen, front room, work room, and parlor -- everything, in fact, short of sleeping quarters.

King Jonathan. She hadn't had time to think very much about him, either. She couldn't claim to have known him well, but she had served him nigh on ten years, had worked with him, had even enjoyed some familiarity with him on occasion. She had lived under his rule, saved his children's lives and his country. She supposed she had known him better than had most. She respected him, and had always felt loyal: her loyalty for his steady guardianship. She couldn't imagine him gone. His death didn't seem real at all. The children in dusty court to which opened her door were real. And her dirty floor; the piles of clothes sorted into those to wash and those to mend; the pottage burning on her hearth: they were real. Damn it all! Was it burning? She had only intended to reheat it... She had never had this much difficulty before, even on those times when Numair was away.

King Jonathan, there was something else about Jonathan… Oh dear, how could she have nearly forgotten? They were to go pay their respects to the king this afternoon. She and Sarralyn and Rikash. Numair was to have gone with them, but she doubted that he would be able to tear himself away from whatever crucially important work he was now doing. She knew she was being a bit unfair to her husband. He was having a hard time of it. At least the pottage wasn't too badly scorched. It would still do for supper when they returned from the Chapel Royal. Where they were going. Now, before something else came up to distract them. Just as soon as Rikash was fed and Sarralyn's hair was combed. And tonight, she would ask Numair to find a little more time for their family.


	7. Alan of Pirate's Swoop

_"Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,  
So mighty and so many my defects,  
That I would rather hide me…"  
_--Richard III; III.vii

"Right. Um." Alan of Pirate's Swoop cleared his throat. "Well. Start with the basic strike and block pattern. In pairs. The way you've been doing it. I'll … I'll walk around and, um, correct --" No! That was the wrong word. "And help you with your stances and holds." He was sweating. 'Be careful what you wish for,' every fable said. If only he had thought to approach Sir Gareth, or Sir Myles, and ask for duties. Yesterday afternoon, when the training master's assistants had been with him, it hadn't seemed this difficult. But now, there was no one to back him up. The pages were staring at him, not making any motion towards following his instructions. Of course, they had no reason to listen to his direction. Yesterday, the others had mainly given instructions, as Alan watched. "Come on," he said. "Form pairs." They slowly shuffled around. They were short, these ten and eleven year-olds. He hadn't been so short at that age, surely.

"We aren't enough," one of them said, after what seemed like and age of slow movement. "I don't have a partner."

"I'll partner you," Alan said, more confidently than he felt. With his luck, he would have completely forgotten all of his staff-work.

"Then you won't be able to check our positions," another of them pointed out. He and his friends -- Alan assumed that they were his friends -- snickered.

"That's right --" He waited for the boy to supply name.

"Alberic of Groten." Little Alberic managed to sound both sullen and sneering at the same time.

"So you'll have to be perfect, Alberic of Groten." He had an idea that he ought to call the boy to task, ought to make an example of him for his disrespect, but that thought terrified him. He was only a squire, albeit an overaged one; he didn't really have any authority in this sphere except that which he was given temporarily by the training master.

The boy laughed, tossing his head and mimicking Alan's words to his friends. They lazily began to hit and block in a far corner of the training yard, pointedly turned away from Alan.

Alan shrugged. "Well," he said to the boy without a partner, "I'll block you, to start. No, not like that." The boy was holding his staff all wrong. When Alan made to fix his hold, he slid his hands easily into the correct position, a resigned and world-weary look on his face. "Look," Alan said, "there's a very good reason for holding it that way." The boy rolled his eyes, but began the drill of high strike then low.

As he easily and mindlessly fell into the pattern of strikes and blocks, he imagined a confrontation with the really obnoxious page -- with Alberic. Groten would start it, of course, perhaps by saying something about Mother, or by flatly refusing to follow Alan's instructions. Then he would knock him down, humiliate him. 'If you can't keep your tongue civil, Groten,' he would say, 'I advise you at the very least to keep it close.' Caught up in his fantasy, he lost the drill and struck back at his partner, who gave a shout and dropped his staff, jolting Alan out of his daydream.

"You hit me!" He accused.

"Sorry." That was another mistake, he supposed, as soon as he had said it. By now, the boy should be able to counter an unexpected hit. When he had been a page, the instructors had purposely done such things to ready his reflexes and keep him paying attention. "Here. You work in threes with them, now," he said, pointing to the nearest pair. He had better watch some of the others, try to make sure that at least they didn't get worse under his watch. Most of them had completely stopped the drill, and were simply whacking at each other with abandon.

"No, no," he said what seemed like a thousand times. "Look at yourself. Your stance is terrible. That's why you have to master the drill, first." Grumbling and muttering, they gradually obeyed, returning to halfhearted strike and block patterns, at least for as long as he was watching. Alan was bewildered: didn't they care at all that there was a proper way of doing things? They hadn't been this lazy yesterday while under the assistants' eyes.

The group in the far corner was huddled around something. A bird, probably, or a squirrel, Alan thought. He wouldn't put it past Alberic of Groten. Not at all. Probably, he thought suddenly, it was another boy. He tried to remember how many there had been to begin with…

"Hey," he called as he approached. "You've got work to do. If you keep up like this, I'll keep you after." It was an empty threat, of course.

Evidently, however, they weren't so sure. With painful and insolent slowness, Groten and his three friends formed two pairs. Groten turned his back deliberately towards Alan. They had, Alan realized, when came near, been digging a hole in the corner of the training yard with the butts of their staffs.

"Can't we stop this stupid drill, already?" Groten whined. "Sir Padraig never makes us go this long without varying it."

"You haven't _spent_ any time drilling!" His frustration seethed, but knew he sounded like an indignant child, not a twenty-one year old man. He hadn't felt this ineffectual and feeble since, well, since he was a page, really. "There is no purpose," he continued, carefully controlling his tone, "in moving to a more complex pattern when you run roughshod over the simpler, and learn nothing from it."

Groten looked a little chastened, but not much. "How do you know? I mean, really, how do you know? You aren't the training master."

That shocked him. "Are you that insubordinate?" He asked slowly, astonished. "Does it pain you so to acknowledge any authority? 'Best reign who first well hath obeyed' (1). You will never pass through the Chamber if you do not learn to submit."

"But how do we know that we ought to submit to you? I wouldn't, for example, "submit" to a peasant. I mean, I wouldn't do it without good reason to."

"You haven't been through the Ordeal either," another boy said. "You don't know what it's like."

The page was right, Alan realized as the virtuous indignation faded a little in his mind. It was several months yet until his Ordeal. And here he was, unable to oversee -- not even unable to teach, but unable to oversee -- a group of children. Not even minding what everyone said: that the Chamber took a dim view of traitors and their kin. He had seen Lerant of Eldorne, bitter to be only in the King's Own, and not to hold the honorable title of knight. And many whispered that it was only for fear of the Ordeal that he had not tried for his shield…

"And you won't pass, neither," said one of Groten's friends in a loud voice. Cadwal, Alan thought he remembered his name as being. Cadwal of…the fief escaped him momentarily. "Traitors and criminals die in the Chamber of the Ordeal." Cadwal's eyes were wide at the realization that he was staring at a dead man walking, as it were. There were murmurs and whispers throughout the circle of boys that had abandoned all pretense of work to crowd around them. At last, someone brave enough to voice what they had all been thinking!

"I am not a traitor." Damn it all! Why was his voice shaking? He wasn't a traitor! He hadn't had anything to do with it! He had been the king's squire, by all the gods. How dare they impugn his loyalty to the Crown! And even Thom was not a traitor, per se. Even Thom hadn't meant what he had done. Thom. Older brother. For whom he hadn't given a thought all day. Guilty, yes, but not criminal. Thom. Or perhaps not even Thom. Yesterday he had been permitted to see him, bound up in his magical cage, twisted, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling, face contorted and coarsened with unnatural features. He had peered through the foggy barrier in horror and pity and revulsion. Thom, who had known so much, whose intelligence and knowledge he had always held in awe. It was so much easier to forget about his brother's involvement, to fall into the almost automatic assumption that he was still rapt in his studies at the University. Poor Thom. What had been thinking to do when he -- … when he…

"Not a traitor," he repeated. But as he opened his mouth to say more, the hour rang. The "lesson," such as it had been, was over. After piling their staves neatly and quickly under the overhanging stable roof, the boys ran out.

Alan closed his eyes. There was a horrible ache behind them. 'I would be well within my rights, Cadwal of Runnerspring,' he imagined himself as having said. (Runnerspring: that was it -- funny how these things came to you when it was too late. Or perhaps it wasn't Runnerspring, but that name was simply the first that came to mind.) 'I would be well within my rights to challenge you for that slander. However, as the pitiful quality of the staff work you showed today demonstrates, you are so woefully inadequate in the combat arts that no purpose could possibly be served by my meeting you on an honorable field.' But, of course, he hadn't said it. Hadn't thought of it at the right time. He was the one who was woefully inadequate.

Lord Raoul had been right not to waste his time training him. Because, however reasonable his briefly-knightmaster's explanation had been, it couldn't have been the truth. Mother spoke of Lord Raoul and those who had been his squires often enough. He took those fit to command and taught them not only to be the best in the fighting arts, but all his tricks and knowledge of strategy, of leading men, of tactics. And he would have realized soon enough that he had made a mistake in taking Alan. He had given him a good chance, had honestly tried to teach him; he just hadn't been good enough.

Not that Sir Geoffrey hadn't been good to him, or that he wasn't a skilled knight. Kind, noble, one of the best with the sword (excepting Mother, of course). Bent over in the snow in a northern forest, his pale, gentle features barely showing the mortal pain of a belly-wound. Blood freezing as it ran out through his fingers and through Alan's. Dying. And he helpless beside his lord. Beside the king. If only Lord Raoul had let him stay, had spared him from this, and from Sir Geoffrey. Terrible, what a terrible person he was, to wish that. Not only incompetent and useless, but mean-spirited and selfish as well. Weak. Unable to face adversity. He wanted to go back to his room and cry. 

No. No, he couldn't do that. He couldn't let himself go again. He had to control it. It was just that it was beginning to get dark, anyway. Things always seemed worse come nightfall. Tonight, he forced himself to think with a cleared mind. Tonight he was serving at table: although the king was dead, -- no, don't think about that, don't relive it -- his squire had some duties still to the entire royal family, and serving at meals was one. The familiar (though fairly recent) memory of the Gallan ambassador flew into his mind -- No. No. No. No. No. Don't remember that. Don't think about the king. -- So he had to get back to his room to clean up and change. Perhaps he would stop in the chapel to pray for a few moments. For the King. For Sir Geoffrey. Ask Mithros for strength for himself. Yes, he should do that.

But first, he had to make his report to Sir Padraig. Had to tell him about his massive failure today. Had to apologize. "Their combat training must not lie fallow," the knight had said. And he had as good as let it be overrun with weeds. Slowly, Alan dragged himself across the courtyard, away from the slowly-setting sun.

* * *

(1) John Milton: Paradise Regained, Book 3, 195-196. (It seems that Alan, too, may be following in his namesake's footsteps!)

* * *

(The above, rather condescendingly punctuated aside refers, of course, to Lord Alan of Trebond, who seems to have been noted as a pedant.)

* * *

6--6-05: Fixed several typos.  



	8. Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau

_To whom, with all submission, on my knee  
I do bequeath my faithful services  
And true subjection everlastingly._"  
--King John; V.vii.103-105

Corus was silent. It was not, however, the same silence Alanna had noticed upon King Roald's death. That had been a quiet and respectful silence; this was a tense, deserted, astonishment. It was worse than the road had been. This was a city; in the early evening it should have been still thronged with tradesmen and beggars, not sparsely peopled with hurrying, hunched figures. Alanna had been mentally preparing herself to force a path through a crowd, but there was no need. Her and Raoul's presence was barely remarked, except to give them free and deferential passage all the way to the palace gates.

She was reluctant to relinquish her horse to an overawed stable boy: she had been looking forward to the well-worn ritual of caring for her mount as a way of preparing herself for, well, for whatever for which she needed self-preparation. But Raoul made a significant motion with his chin, and so she simply wiped her suddenly sweaty palms ineffectually on her leather riding breeches and followed. She had no reason to be nervous, she told herself. Absolutely no reason. This was ridiculous, she lectured herself when her stomach refused to listen. She was skilled on the battlefield or in single combat; she had even learned to make herself useful, or at least not a hindrance, in the council chamber. She had probably spent more time at the palace than at home; she was certainly comfortable there. Grief was one thing. Regret was one thing. Anger was one thing. This was something else, and it was unacceptable!

"It isn't your fault, Lioness." She had not noticed Buriram Tourakom, now Lady of Malorie's Peak as well, approaching. She, having apparently already greeted her husband, now addressed herself to Alanna. Alanna scowled. She had thought she had unpicked that particular knot last night once and for all. And now Buri would bring it up again!

"Just what your son did," Buri commented. "Or rather, what he would have done were he not so polite to his elders."

Son? Surely…

"Alan," Buri clarified quickly. "Gods, Lioness, you didn't think I meant…?"

"I don't know what to think about anything anymore!" There was an uncomfortable silence. Alanna knew she must look as though she were about to become hysterical.

"You know," Buri said quietly. "Actually, you probably don't know, but I'll tell you anyway. You were my model, Lioness. When I was barely a woman and in a strange country, not knowing which way to turn myself, I looked to you. You were strong, you were loyal, you were determined, you made difficult choices as best as you were able. Don't let me down now."

Before Alanna could answer, Raoul was at their side, unclasping his own cloak to drape it around his wife. "You oughtn't to be out in the cold like this, Buri" he scolded.

Buri's look stated her opinion of his coddling very clearly. "I'm not going to go keel over if I move, dear."

Alanna couldn't help but smile. "That's men for you," she informed her younger friend. "George tried to keep me in bed for the first week when I was pregnant…" With Thom, she had been about to say. "When I was first pregnant." Buri squeezed her hand.

"It isn't very cold, anyway," she told her husband, handing back his cloak. "And the Healer said it wouldn't matter a bit that I'm a little older than most."

They walked together through the courtyard. It _was_ cold, and dark clouds promised the winter's first snowfall. Black hung from the palace windows, and all its gay flags were respectfully lowered. But Alanna's eyes were pulled not up but down, to the narrow slits -- no more than an inch high -- that allowed a bit of natural light into the palace's lower levels. Where she looked, she saw the windows to servant quarters, or service wings: kitchens, perhaps, or clerks' offices. But on the far side of the great yard -- where she was carefully avoiding looking -- underneath the chapels and the armory and the courtrooms, similar slits helped light the upper rooms above the darkest, and perhaps most feared reaches of Corus: the Royal prisons. In those dungeons malefactors awaited their judgment, and there they submitted to the law's awful power to maim, torture, and kill. There, her son undoubtedly waited now. And there -- perhaps -- he would be punished. As King's Champion, Alanna had learned very quickly to steel herself to the unpleasant fates of offenders against royal justice. It had not been difficult: she had little compassion for criminals, no matter their desperate pleas for mercy. She had never felt that an evil childhood or impoverished circumstances excused lawlessness. She still held such sentiments. But she had never before felt a chill when she contemplated the fortress-like building that housed the courtrooms and their lower, companion chambers.

Alanna and her companions were not the only ones crossing the courtyard. Soberly-clad servants scuttled from building to building, or stole a moment from their work to huddle and gossip with a friend along a wall. These bobbed reverences as their betters passed, but doubled their whisperings in their wake. Alanna was nearly knocked over by a careening page, the royal device on his uniform marred by a hastily-applied bend sable. He briefly glanced up at them, then blinked quickly a few times, keeping his head lowered.

"'Pardon, my lords, my lady," he said. "I…"

"No matter," Raoul replied.

"Though a little more care might be appropriate, under the circumstances." Buri added her comment softly but firmly.

The boy looked stricken. "I didn't mean any disrespect to… to anything! My lady. Really, I… I…"

This time, Alanna took pity on him. She had never been a mothering sort, but he was so flustered… He reminded her a bit of Alan at that age. "Of course you didn't," she said.

The boy's eyes got wider. "Lady Lioness?" He said, and then turned a brilliant pink.

Alanna nodded. "But go on, now; you were quite in a hurry, I believe."

With a final bow, he left them, walking quickly but sedately.

"Alberic of Groten," Raoul commented. "Ansel's an arch-conservative if I ever knew one, but his son's not a bad sort, from what I've seen. Quite capable and willing to learn, and cheerful besides." Perhaps realizing the incongruity of the current atmosphere and his praising a boy for his good cheer, he said nothing more.

They passed into a smaller courtyard, ringed by buildings that held apartments for nobles who lived at court, and the pages' and squires' wings. By virtue of being King's Champion, Alanna could always expect to be housed here. And here it was quieter. Only one figure hurried across -- toward them. News of their arrival had already spread, then. Alanna squinted to make out its approaching features in the gathering dusk. Something seemed familiar about it… it was Alan.

But he walked more slowly the nearer he came. When he was some feet away, he stopped to bow carefully. Alanna remembered, an aching lump in her throat, the times when little Alan had raced to her arms upon her infrequent returns to the Swoop. And now, he didn't seem to welcome even her gaze, let alone her embrace. She wondered if it was Raoul's presence -- No! It couldn't be that he was embittered over that! Alan was old enough to know that circumstances unforeseen could appear at any moment. And with a reorganization of the King's Own coming up so suddenly… No, it must be something else. Well, then, if he would not greet her first, she would have to meet him. She left Raoul and Buri to run to her grown son.

He was nearly a head the taller; she had to reach up to hug him. He wouldn't meet her eyes, and he had been crying. "Oh, Alan." Poor Alan: he had always been anxious for approval, and now this… It would be for him what it would have been for her had Roger succeeded when she was Jon's squire. She wanted to comfort him, tell him it would all be all right in the end. But how could she? It would not be all right. And it would not end soon. At least he looked well, if one discounted his nervous, flickering stare. A strong young squire, ready to become a upright knight of the realm like his mother. She had heard from Raoul that he had half-contained … It … in Jonathan's chambers and run to give the alarm. That he had demonstrated again how levelheaded and conscientious he was.

"Mother. I--" He hung his head, stepping slightly away from her. "I'm sorry, Mother."

"And what have you done to apologize for?" That wasn't how it was supposed to sound. She meant to comfort, not to accuse! How out-of-touch was she from her children, that she could be perfectly kind to an anonymous page, but always distant from her own son? She tried to correct it. "Alan. I'm so proud -- and so glad -- that I have one good son left to me."

"I'm not. I'm not a good son."

In the background, Buri muttered, much louder than she'd probably intended. "Well, boy, you haven't committed High Treason yet; puts you up a few notches in my book, at least."

Alan had heard it as well. "What -- What are you going to do, Mother?" He asked quietly, hesitantly.

"Do? I shall serve the Crown, as I always have. I'm not so old that I need to retire as the Champion (though if there's another who can do it as well, I'll step down)." It was the truth, but not an answer to the question he had really asked.

Over Alan's shoulder, Alanna could see another group approaching: one lead figure, trailed by a few others. The king. This was it; this was the object of her apprehension. Alan, hearing the footsteps, and guessing at their implication, scuttled off to the side.

"Sir Alanna." She blinked. It was Jonathan. No, of course not. On the periphery of her sight, she could tell that her son and companions were bowing.

She followed their lead. "Your Majesty."

"Well. You made good time."

"It was an easy journey, sire. Easier than what awaited -- awaits -- us, I think,. Both Roald and Raoul nodded slightly in affirmation. "So what news? What's happened?

If Roald was surprised to hear the question from her and not from Raoul, he hid it almost completely. "Much the same as it was," he said, looking towards Raoul. "Numair Salmalín makes us his report tomorrow." Now he looked at Alanna. "It's expected that he'll recommend using the Dominion Jewel to exorcise Roger's spirit, so that Master Thom can stand trial." How could he say that so calmly? But he had dealt in these words and phrases for nearly a week. Repetition brought familiarity, she supposed. But to her? To say so coldly, 'Master Thom can stand trial?' It _wasn't_ that she was surprised. Not at all. Roald had every right not to care. He had every right to be angry. She was angry herself. And of course there would be a trial. She had known that from the first. There would be a trial, a capital trial… "Though of course," Roald was saying, "my Lord Archpriest will have something to say about it as well."

"Don't they always." Such a typical comment from Raoul!

"There are no reports of unrest and the borders are stable, though it is too early to tell with any certainty whether my father's death will have sparked a change there. Thanks to our couriers, the entire realm is aware that the king is dead." Roald stood at ease, his arms instinctively clasped behind his back.

Raoul nodded. His eyes showed hint of a private smile behind the bleak demeanor he had worn since had arrived at the Swoop, probably since Jonathan's death. "A few worries the less, at least. And --" He hesitated a moment -- "You unquestionably do outrank us now, Your Majesty," he said gently.

For a moment, Roald clearly didn't understand. Then he raised his eyebrows and carefully adopted a more relaxed stance. "Thank you, my lord." He paused a moment, as if to include Alanna in his next words, and separate them from what had gone before. "I had thought not to burden you further until tomorrow." They nodded at that. She was tired, Alanna realized. Not unduly exhausted, but filled with the honest fatigue of a long day of travel. Time to sit down and think was very welcome. "My father's funeral is in two days time. His body is in state in the Sun Chapel, should you wish to pay your respects."

Jonathan. Could she do it? Could she look at his body and realize that Roger had won? -- No, not won: Roald was king, and the spirit-thing would be gotten rid of. But could she face her longtime enemy's victim -- and her son's? Her king? She was being ridiculous. Of course she could. And she had to see his body, had make her apology, and say goodbye. Had to pay her respects. And not only to the dead, either…

She knelt to Roald with almost imperceptible care, removing her still-sheathed sword to lay it between her and the king.

"Sire." She held out her joined hands. A cool breeze suddenly passed across her face and through the cloth of her shirt where the undergarment was exposed at her lower arms. "I am your liege-woman, of life and limb, of truth and of earthly honor, bearing to you and your heirs against every creature living or dead. So help me, my Gods." Against every creature living or dead. When Old King Roald had died unexpectedly, many had delayed in giving their wholehearted allegiance to Jonathan. She would make it clear that she did not intend any such wavering with this new king.

He had taken her hands in his. "I accept your fealty to me and to mine." His voice was only a little shaky, and that perhaps because he was startled. She kept her head lowered, less for the outward semblance of respect than because she did not want to look into Roald's face. She told herself that it was simply because she could not bear to see his visage, so similar would it be to Jonathan's. And it _was_ true! Father and son had always been very alike. During their few days on the road, when he spoke to distract her from her worries, Raoul had said as much. "And I shall bear it in good faith, in truth and earthly honor, against every creature living or dead." Roald raised her up to give her the kiss of peace.

He seemed to have steadied himself, Alanna thought, looking critically at her new king. It had to be difficult to accept the homage of an older, more experienced knight from whom one had been used to take direction. But Jonathan had not been ill at ease, and he had done as much. You didn't see him until months after the fact, not a scarce week, she reminded herself. Most of Roald's slightly dazed manner would be the shock of it all. And this would not necessarily be easy for her either, the realized. Could she trust a man to lead her whom she had held in swaddling clothes? Duke Gareth had, and Myles; they would do so again. They would all muddle through this together, then: she and Roald, Raoul, Gary, Myles … and the younger generation, too. Keladry, her old squire Nealan of Queenscove, Alan.

She could almost feel Raoul suppressing another smile on the edge of her line of sight. Since when had the blunt old Lioness gone in for ceremony and show? Ah, Raoul, but you know how important it is to fill the void, to reforge the web.

And indeed, Raoul was stepping forward. "It takes an old friend to remind one of one's own duty, I suppose, sire." It was the half-joking, half-deprecating sort of remark for which Raoul had always been known, though now his voice was quiet, even solemn.

As Raoul knelt, Alanna wondered suddenly if her Alan -- or Roald himself, for that matter -- truly realized the importance of such moments. Pledging faith and rendering homage: these were the cornerstones of their world. This younger generation was so concerned with their legal reform, with their Council of Lords and Commons, that they were in danger of forgetting that the realm was not tied together with pieces of paper, with impartial laws, but with oaths of fealty, with the individual, personal bonds between people. Lady Knight Keladry spoke of equality under the law, of uniformity of the law, but Alanna could see the end of that vision, and it frightened her. An impersonal government that paid in specified coin for the service of its knights. No, not even knights. In the world that was the inevitable product of this zeal for change, there would be no knights -- no nobles -- only soldiers. No fiefs where a lord cared for the well-being of his people. It was the world the merchants wanted. A world where everything was regulated by unchangeable and rational law. It would never stand. You could not hold a country together with greed and reason alone. A man -- or a woman -- needed an oriflamme for which to fight, a lord to whom to be loyal. She had not been motivated only by a desire to show support to Roald when she had sworn to him so precipitously.

She had not watched her king's face when she had done her homage, but she studied it as he and Raoul swore their oaths. He was solemn. He understood the grave and awesome bond that was being created, she could tell. He fully realized the burden of lordship, the responsibility of justice and leadership that he took as he accepted fealty. Perhaps there was hope for Tortall, after all. A few flakes of snow began to fall. Even if these were the first, it would be an early winter.

* * *

Apologies for the delay: I'll try to be more regular.  
--A.R.  



	9. Master Numair Salmalín

"_I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,  
Give even way unto my rough affairs.  
Put not you on the visage of the times  
And be like them to Percy troublesome._"  
--Second Part of Henry IV; III.iii.

"You offered to do what?" Daine reappeared in the front room, their infant son beginning to calm in her arms. "Shhh, shu, Rikash. No, not Mummy's hair." She gave the child a corner of her thick woolen shawl to grip instead.

"Nothing, nothing of importance." What had he been thinking, almost blurting it all out the moment he walked in the door? It would only upset Daine. And it wasn't as though there was thing to be done about it. Numair Salmalìn sat down in the first chair he came to, slinging his cloak over the back of another, and let out a deep breaeth. "Gods, am I starving!"

His wife didn't move. "There's pottage left. It was hot at sunset." She gestured with her head in the direction of the hearth. "And I hope you washed your hands." He hadn't, but he didn't want to venture back outside into the cold. Besides, a bit of ink and dust wouldn't harm anyone. He wiped his hands on his tunic before fetching himself a bowl. The fire was banked for the night, but a little warmth still emanated from it. More warmth than emanated from his wife, at any rate. He added more kindling, and willed the embers to grow into flames. Much better. That done, he squatted down to serve himself from the iron pot hanging over the hearth.

"Well. I think I can make a decent report tomorrow," he ventured, picking up the thread of their conversation. "You can't imagine what a relief it is not to have failed, after all that work."

Daine smiled thinly.

He took a large spoonful of pottage. It was cold. And burnt. Somehow, one didn't tend to think of those two states occurring simultaneously. But their conflation was becoming all too familiar to him. He made a face. "Is there any bread?"

This time, it was his wife who scowled. "In the cupboard. Where it's always kept, Numair. I had thought to keep it by for Sarralyn's breakfast tomorrow, but if your stomach is too delicate for pottage…"

What was wrong with Daine? he wondered. She was so testy these days. Wasn't it enough that his more erudite colleagues (one of whom he had once happily been) were refusing to speak to him, and that the less erudite were avoiding him like a plague? Wasn't it enough that Thaliard Wells, who had been his best student and the only one advanced enough to have helped him with the research for this, had suddenly requested to transfer to the City of the Gods to pursue his studies with the Mithrans? Wasn't it enough that he had done more study and work in the last two days than in the last frantic weeks of cramming for his Black-Robe thesis defense at Carthak? Did he have to come home late to an angry wife and a burnt dinner on top of it all? He decided not to respond to her provocation, but forced down another spoonful of the mess in his bowl.

"So, now. What was it you were going to do?" Daine had seated herself in the rocker; she looked the picture of motherly and wifely comfort as she nestled her son against her breast. Salmalin smiled in spite of himself.

"Nothing. Nothing you need worry about."

"Oh, indeed? If I needn't worry about it, you might tell me. Or am I no longer your wife -- just the helpmeet who raises your children?"

That was a low blow. "Daine, you know that isn't fair at all." Except that it was fair, to some extent. "I know, Daine. I know I haven't been doing my share. But I have been stretched thin with just my work," he pleaded. "When this has blown over, I promise I'll do better. If --" He stopped. How could he say it? How could he tell her?

"But you still can't tell me what you were so eager to reveal when you walked in." Daine didn't sound angry now as much as she sounded worn out and weary. "By all the gods, Numair! If you and your university weren't so obsessed with keeping all your doings in secrecy and shadows, you might not be in such a mess now!"

Salmalin sighed, putting down his bowl. There was no point in trying to eat anymore. "I … _You_ don't believe that I'm wicked, do you? That this is all my fault?" He put his hand on the arm of her chair. "You are with me?" For a moment, he thought that she would contradict him. The fire crackled and a log popped. A spark flew out and quickly dulled and died on the hearthstones.

"Of course I'm with you." His wife shifted Rikash to place a hand over his own. "I've been fussing too much, I'm sure, and I am sorry. Peace?"

"You weren't without reason." With a courtier's gallantry, he bent his head to kiss her hand. Daine gave him a reproving smile, gently removing herself from his hold. She leaned forward a little.

"Now tell me."

Salmalin took a deep breath. "You know nothing can be done while … while Roger of Conte's spirit is trapped in Thom's body. And I think -- actually I'm quite sure now -- that the Dominion Jewel is the only way to get it out."

"And?"

He shrugged.

"Numair, that's hardly a state secret."  
"So you plan on using the Jewel, hmm?"

He twined his fingers and stretched them. "That's right. It makes perfect sense." Gods! Why was he so defensive? "The Jewel is supposed to strengthen the bonds of king and country. Treason is its antithesis. It should work very well against it."

"So?"

He didn't want to look at her, so he stared at the fire until his eyes began to water. He closed them, and light continued to flash inside his eyelids. "It's like this, Daine. You know that it's tricky using the the Jewel. You have to put power in to get power out, one might say. A lot of power. And I thought that I -- I'd offer to give it." Once started, his explanation would not be stopped. "I've done all the calculations I can, and it shouldn't kill me."

"What?" Daine was suddenly sitting up, very alert.

He tried to shrug it off. "I'll be offering my services to Roald as far as actually using the Jewel to expel Roger -- that's all. It won't be dangerous, I'm sure."

"But you aren't sure enough to be easy telling me about it." He couldn't identify the emotion in Daine's voice. If there even was an emotion. He looked down. "No, Numair. You can't do it alone. Why can't you use a group of mages?"

"I don't know what will happen. It's never been done before! You want me to risk two people, five people?"

"Risk five people, or kill yourself for certain to go out in a blaze of glory?" Rikash stirred and fretted, and she lowered her voice a little. "You don't need to prove your innocence. No one has charged you with anything. No one will. You've said yourself that everyone expresses confidence in you."

"They may say it, but … And, Daine, I am responsible, in some way."

"You're being ridiculous. No. You can't do it."

"You don't understand, Magelet. It's the right thing to do. The honorable, noble thing to do. Do you want Rikash to grow up with a father he can't respect? With a father who was too cowardly -- too afraid to risk himself -- to make amends for his mistakes?

"And you would rather he grow up with no father at all? I'm not your "Magelet," innocent and naive. I know the world as well as you, Numair. You talk about honor, about nobility -- those aren't for us! We follow the Gods' laws, the King's laws; we give our service and take our wage. Some grandiose repaying: that's for a noble. And you aren't a noble, Numair."

"Daine, calm down; that isn't what I meant at all." But his soothing was ineffectual. His wife had only just been started.

"You talk about Rikash, about what he'll think? Oh it's bad enough that we live so close to the palace, with all your noble students dropping by, oh so friendly and ready to play with the children! Ready to tell them stories and glory-tales! It's fine -- it gives me a bit time to do my work. It's good that our children grow up friendly with the palace folk. But sooner or later…" She trailed off. "Do you know what Tove was telling me? Her Erik wants to be a knight. A knight!"

Numair shifted his position. Why did Daine make him feel so uncomfortable? "So? And I thought you weren't on speaking terms with Tove Sievers."

Daine ignored his last comment. "So? So? Commoners don't become knights. Erik's only six, seven; he adores the trouveres' songs, the tales of _honor_." She put an undue emphasis on the last word, Salmalin thought. "Can you imagine how broken he'll be when he finally realizes that it's impossible? And you'll only make it worse for Rikash if you go off acting like what you aren't." Her voice was more conciliating now. "Please, Numair?"

"Daine. What's right is what's right, no matter who I am." But he knew that his conviction was less, now. "And no one would agree to work with me anyway. Not now." She raised her eyebrows. And they would work with him, he knew. They, too, would leap at the chance to prove that they had nothing but the interests of the realm at heart. They would want a share of the restitution. "I suppose," he began.

"Good." Daine's tone didn't admit the possibility of further argument. She stood up, shifting Rikash, now fully asleep. She yawned. "Goo'-night, Numair. Gods keep you."

"And you, love. I'll only be a little longer. " She smiled and blew him kiss before disappearing through the curtain into their sleeping chamber.

Once sure that she had gone, Salmalìn quietly investigated the bread situation. Even if he cut himself a decently-sized piece now, he would still leave for two little girls' breakfasts. And Daine would buy more tomorrow. Sitting back down with the dim fire's welcome heat at his back, he carefully spread his papers where no stray spark would damage them. He could ask Harailt, surely. And Galina would help if she thought it might get her research approved once this nightmare was over. Gautier of Jesslaw, perhaps. Polydore Rouse was a Healer, but he was a strong mage in other ways as well. And very dependable, if not very imaginative. Now, how to rework the equations to account for more participants? He wasn't unhappy at being beaten down by his wife, he realized suddenly. Stoicism was all very well, but it was good not to be facing death.


	10. Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau

_"Amen; and make me die a good old man!  
That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing:  
I marvel why her grace did leave it out."_  
--Richard III; II.ii

"Thank you for your counsel, Master Numair." Numair Salmalín bowed and left the room. He recognized a dismissal, albeit an oblique one, when he heard it. Alanna stared after him for a moment before wrenching her attention back to the other Council lords  
"Seems rather straightforward," Vanget haMinch said.

"Unless Salmalín intends to finish his apprentice's work." The mutterings and discussions that the mage's exit had occasioned stopped. Heads turned to identify the speaker. Imrah of Legann. Alanna was pleased to see nods of agreement to his comment. Of course it wasn't true -- she_ knew_ it wasn't -- but how satisfying to see confirmation that that careless bastard wouldn't wiggle his way back into good graces so easily.

Roald, however, was frowning, evidentially less than pleased at the turn his first official Council session had taken, or rather, at the point to which it inexorably insisted on returning. "Have you any cause -- any specific cause -- to doubt Master Numair's loyalty, my lord?" Alanna wondered sarcastically to herself what reason there could possibly be for the young king's weary tone.

"I should think, sire, that King Jonathan's demise would give ample case for suspicion. Salmalín claims ignorance, but…" Lord Imrah's shrug expressed the unsaid end of his thought. "And a mage of his power could surely evade any tests used to discern his sincerity."

"Once a Carthaki, forever for Carthak." Others made similarly ominous speculations

"Now look here," ejaculated Myles of Olau finally. "You can't deny that Numair has served Tortall very well as long as he's lived in it. He and his magics have saved all of our lives." Trust her adoptive father to play the skeptic. But unfortunately, his argument was sincere. And worse, Alanna knew that he was right.

"None of which would provide excuse, were Numair Salmalín a traitor," the king said sharply, cutting off further discussion on that point. Lord Imrah gave a fervent nod. "But he appears in fact to be guiltier of nothing more than gross oversight. These ridiculous speculative accusations serve nothing. When I, too, am struck down by magic, my lord of Legann--" this abrupt addition apparently to forestall his former knight master, who looked to be about to speak -- "you will have the distinct pleasure of knowing that you were right. Until then, however…" The king had intended to joke, perhaps, but his serious face and harsh tone stripped the comment of whatever black humor it might have possessed.

Roald paused, then began again. "Please, my lords, control yourselves. For the full hour before Master Salmalín made his report, we fruitlessly deliberated his and his colleagues' guilt. And while continuing the debate may relieve our feelings, I have always found the practice courts to provide a more effective remedy." There were a few guarded smiles; though no one could dispute the truth of his advice, it didn't seem quite right that a relatively young knight should be lecturing his elders so.

"If I may, Your Majesty," Duke Baird interjected. "Salmalín and his student's papers have been examined under my supervision. There is nothing in them to suggest any deliberate or malicious treachery. I have a report in full for any who would care to see it."

"Even so," Gary said, "I would question how thorough an investigation done in so little time can be. And how accurate."

"I wouldn't be so quick to trust the animal trainer whose tame bear has already mauled."

"Well said, Commander."

"Perhaps. But I don't believe that's really a valid comparison in the first place, Your Grace, however clever the turn of phrase."

"You've already made your views on the subject abundantly clear, sir. There's really no need to subject us to them again."

"Perhaps you'd care to continue this discussion elsewhere, my lord? In a more direct manner?"

"…Would do a bit more than 'not trust,' I should say, eh, Commander?"

"If _I_ could get my hands on Salmalín…" So much for anyone who thought that nobles were above crudity of language and idea, she thought, upon hearing his suggestion.

"Well, now, that's going a bit far perhaps."

"There _is_ a lady in the room, my lord."

Had it always to come around to that? "I'm a soldier, Your Grace. I've heard and seen as much as you have. And have done nearly as bad as you propose, I'm sure. And would happily join you." He raised his brows at her vehemence, but he _couldn't_ really be surprised. After all these years, she had amply demonstrated that she was not, under any circumstances, a "lady."

"Enough!" Alanna blinked. She didn't believe that she had ever seen Prince Roald the least bit angry before. So there was some fire behind that mild, polite exterior after all. Interesting. He looked very much like Jonathan had when he was displeased. Jonathan. There was no crippling black blot on her mind; no need to cry. Just a guilty jolt that she hadn't been thinking about him, and a subsequent spurt of anguish. In the daylight, amid her friends and peers and with work to be done, she was pushing aside the worst of the pain.

"There will be no more discussion of this," said Roald.

"But sire--"

Roald glared in the direction of the speaker. "I cannot imagine that you have any argument that has not been made many times already this morning, my lord."

Alanna squirmed just a little. What was it about the Contés? 'I'd kill to to be able to get that effect out of my new recreuits with so little effort," Raoul had complained time and again. She could feel somewhat virtuous, however, having mostly kept quiet over the course of the meeting. It was galling to be dependent on the University to finish the mess it had caused; more irritating still was that Roald seemed prepared to overlook everything in the name of reconciliation. Jonathan wouldn't have done it. He would have had vengeance…

"There is a valid concern behind all the arguing you're dismissing, sire," she said. "Perhaps there was no malicious intent, -- and we can concede that -- but isn't the entire University then to be held responsible? They've gotten no more than a tap on the wrist for all their treasonous negligence. Why aren't you punishing them at all?" She could feel her hand reaching instinctively for her sword as she spoke. She was looking at Roald, but on the periphery of her vision, she saw nods.

"Very well put, Lioness."

"My Lady Champion is right, Your Majesty. That is the crux of this matter."

"If by 'punishing them at all' you mean 'razing the University to the grounds, slaughtering every man, woman and child inside, and sowing the grounds with salt,' I intend no such thing." Alanna hoped that she only imagined the slight chuckle from Myles' direction. "We shall not alienate some of the most powerful men and women in my realm; we shall not give them a reason to serve Tusaine, or Scanra, or Carthak. Better that they be grateful for our mercy than angry at our heavy-handedness -- for those who are guilty will be punished." He looked around the room, catching the eyes of each of the council lords. "Am I understood?"

The brief silence which followed was quickly broken by Vanget haMinch. "Then we are to take it that Your Majesty will risk Master Salmalín's offer?"

"I shall 'risk' it, my lord, as you say."

"To a layman," Duke Baird said, looking straight at haMinch "there might appear risk, but speaking as a person educated in the Gift, the proposed is entirely reasonable and logical. Or so at least is my opinion."

Alanna felt something poke her shoulder. She ignored it. Another poke, harder this time. Damn Myles! "Alanna…" her adoptive father said softly. Poke. "Alanna…." No. She would keep her counsel. There was no need to say anything. No need to credit Salmalín with anything. Not now. "You've got to support him!" Myles hissed.

Oh all right. "It is mine as well, Your Grace," she said. Another poke. She glared at Sir Myles. "From N-Master Salmalín's explanation, it would seem that any risk involved is taken by the University mages entirely."

"So it _seems_."

"You, my lord, are distinctly unGifted. Forgive me, but you have no conception of the magic that will be involved, or its relative danger. If His Majesty but follows Master Salmalín's instructions…"

"Aye. 'Master_ Salmalín's_ instructions!' We've seen what following 'Master Salmalín's instructions' will do!"

"I believe you all forget," Roald said calmly, breaking up the discussion once more, "that I am fully aware of the 'magic that will be involved.' Like my father, I am a proficient mage, and I have studied the Jewel. If I proceed tomorrow, I will_ not_ be a helpless pawn to Salmalín's design."

This was grudgingly acknowledged. "And there is no other way to end this?" Lord Imrah half-asked, half-conceded, but even his tone was perfunctory. He did not receive an answer. "So be it then."

"I am glad to have your consent, my lord." Lord Imrah looked slightly chagrined, Alanna noted with amusement. Granted, if she had been the one to be taken down a notch by her former squire, she wouldn't be nearly so sanguine. Perhaps she should hunt Nealan down, bully him into a practice bout. Gods as her witnesses, he would surely need the training, and beating someone into the dust would be a good way to forget about…about everything. She wondered where she might find him.

"Lady Alanna?" Not the practice courts for a lazy boy like him, for certes. "Lioness?" Duke Baird was calling her attention. The official meeting seemed to be over. The Council Lords stood in groups, talking and taking leave. "Are you free for a moment to discuss Warding for tomorrow? His Majesty tells me that Master Abelard wishes to direct them." Alanna was impressed in spite of herself. That the Archpriest of Mithros would come down from the City of the Gods in such a time of crisis was not particularly unusual, of course, but nevertheless…

And it was a very good thing that they wouldn't be depending on the the loyalty of the University. Mithros' priest would hardly work against a Gods-given ruler. "It's reassuring that _we'll_ be protecting R-the king." She didn't remember things being this complicated when Jonathan had used the Jewel at his coronation. But then, that had been an unforeseen emergency. It would have been altogether better had there been Wards. Then, they wouldn't have had to--

"It's what we'll with _him_ afterwards that I'm thinking about," Gary said loudly to a neighbor. There was a sudden silence. Everyone turned to look at Alanna. Then, they wouldn't have had to…then, they wouldn't have had to… It was no use. Her thought had stopped. Why were they staring so expectantly? Rhetorical question. What other _he_ could anyone be thinking about? Useless to have tried to ignore it. Useless to have tried to pretend it didn't happen. Useless to think that because she had considered the problem, that she could push it from her mind and let it be forgotten.

"If you're expecting me to beg for his life, you can keep waiting," she said, surprised at how easily the over-rehearsed phrases came. "Because I won't do it."

* * *

Credit for the some of this chapter's structural inspiration must be given to Miss Manners' Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior. Yes, it really must, strange as that may sound. 


	11. Roald of Conté

"_Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown_."  
--Second Part of Henry IV; III.i.

No one had stopped Roald of Conté as he had quietly made his way into the Sun Chapel. It had been almost empty, and the sole worshipper, the elderly Lady Hildegarde, had been finishing her prayers as he entered. Nothing to do but assist her to rise and offer to escort her out.

"Your Highness is most kind ," she said, as she took his arm, still graceful in spite of her age. They walked slowly down the side of the chapel to the doors. "Oh, dear! Your pardon, sir." Releasing him, she began to bend down to untangle her gown, which had caught on the base one of the particularly ornate candelabra which lined the walls. She started to fumble for it, reaching the wrong way.

"Please, my lady," said Roald. It was an easy matter for him to kneel and unhook the thick cloth. The situation was not uncommon and the courtesy simple, made doubly obligatory by the lady's age.

Lady Hildegarde accepted it with decorous and polite indifference. "My thanks to Your Highness." She shifted her train before allowing him to continue to lead her out. "I remember King Jonathan," she said softly. To him? To herself? "A noble man and a good king, Your Highness."

"Indeed, my lady."

"Almost as great a man as the Old King." The Old King? But yes -- Lady Hildegarde was not even the only one to have lived through the reign of Jasson the Conqueror. Three Conté kings. Four, now. "I hope Your Highness will follow his example."

"I shall try to do so, my lady." Follow Jasson's example? What in Mithros's name did she mean? He supposed, he thought ironically, that he could try for the rest of Tusaine, if it would make the old woman happy. Or was it simply the wandering of a half-addled mind? He had memories of Lady Hildegarde, ever sharp-eyed and quick-witted, dancing as well as any younger woman, as opinionated as any scholar, but she had been slowing down these past ten years. She was quieter, less active, but not, he still thought, less clear-headed. He wondered of what she was thinking. They had reached the door. Roald bowed her out. "My lady."

She bent her head in acknowledgment. "Your Highness."

Roald watched her carefully-moving figure. She had grown up with his namesake. She remembered the Barzun Conquest. She had witnessed three kingly deaths. And of them, only Jasson's had been peaceful, he supposed. Perhaps that was what she had meant. Foolish, really, to try to fix any great meaning to idle words and thoughts. He turned back towards the Sun Altar and his original purpose. It was customary to ask Mithros's guidance and protection before a major magical ritual.

Not that he was nervous about the day to come. No, he was not. It was -- well it was not a routine working, but he did know how to use his father's Dominion Jewel. 'Only in the greatest need,' his father had said. 'Never become dependent upon it. Never abuse its power. Never forget that it always a carries a terrible price.' But there was no other way. A magical cage could not hold forever, and conventional magics had no paradigm for redividing souls. And this time, the Jewel would not draw its power from Tortall itself. He thought Father would not disapprove of the logic underlying logic: that the University mages would offer their Gifts to repair what one of their own had wrought. Mithros surely appreciated the justice of it, and the irony. Salmalín had expressed some concerns that the working might prove fatal to him and his colleagues. Roald hoped otherwise, of course, but he found himself undisturbed, as he would not have been… before. What must be done _would_ be done.

He started to approach the altar, but was inevitably drawn just beyond it. Father. Awkwardly, automatonically, he knelt to offer the standard prayer for the dead. What four-year-old Vania had lisped this morning by his side, when the family had gathered round to pay their respects.

Blessed Mithros,  
Fairly judge him,  
Hold not mortal faults against him,  
To Your Glory admit him.  
So mote it be.

Too soon, it was said, and Roald opened his eyes to find himself staring at King Jonathan's gently-glinting mail. Why had this morning's Council been so difficult? He had grown up with most of the lords: Father's advisors and (one-time) year-mates, his own knight-master, his gods-parents. All men (and a woman) who had known him from his infancy, with whom he had been on terms of mutual respect and friendship all of his adult life. Who were now, almost all, in varying states of dissatisfaction with him. Olau angry because he had been too severe on the mages; the Lioness angry because he hadn't been severe enough. Legann and Naxen upset because he was trusting Salmalín. Queenscove displeased because that trust was so wary.

Roald let out an exasperated sigh. And here he was taking a middle course, even. It was true, then, what Father had said so many times, that a the first thing a man lost when he became king was friendship. 'Each man has his own idea about what should be done,' King Jonathan had told him, 'and because it's what he believes, he will never understand why everyone doesn't share it.' True enough, that; he had seen evidence in plenty for it today. Father had always shaken his head, smiling a little at the folly of his fellow men, when he had said it, and he, Roald, had always nodded in agreement. For who could judge better the follies and misconstruings of the nobles and the commons? Who could know better than Father what would truly be best for Tortall? But he himself? In what way was he distinguished from those men, who were older and more experienced than he? Ultimately, it would be his idea -- influenced and modified by others', perhaps, but his nonetheless -- that would be enacted. He had sat formally on the King's Council since reaching his majority; Father and Sir Gareth had included him in their policy discussions from long before that, and for as far back as he could remember, there had been the late-evening "lessons" with King Jonathan. He hoped that it was not arrogance to think that his opinion was as informed and reasonable as any man's. But was it better?

Uncle Gareth had told him that he had done well this morning, that he had done very well. That was something. Perhaps the feeling of absolute terror -- the constant chill, the racing pulse, the dancing nerves -- were simply something to which one had to accustom oneself. Perhaps.

He was tired. He ought to go to bed. Ought to sleep before the next morning. Ought to be confident and sure of himself. Ought not to let anyone know that he had doubts. Couldn't let anyone know that he doubted his own judgment. Couldn't confide in anyone. Couldn't let the nobles see him as weak. So much to do, and so few guiding lights. And Father was gone. Gone. The body before him, the serene face: it was all nothing, dust and clay. Gone.

He turned to kneel before the great altar. "Mithros guide Your servant truly." But the gods, watchful and awesome as they might be, were far away. He was here. He was now. And he was alone.

* * *

Revised/Edited 16-3-06 


	12. Baron Thom of Pirate's Swoop

_Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!  
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,  
His soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone._  
--Richard III; I.ii.

Kill revenge destroy Revenge Revenge Revenge Power Earth-power steal Gods-power Hall of Mithros crumbling Triumph revenge Destruction death power to destroy Revenge Destroy Mother _Mother?_ Destroy kill kill kill Kill KILL Death destroy revenge Win triumph glory god-king Gods destroyer ruin revenge chaos. Hate hate hate hate HATE Kill king revenge destroy kill Mother All powerful best BEST BEST Earthquake crying women screaming child die die Die DIE DIE all powerful kill death destroy ruin revenge Repayment restitution just due deserve DESERVE die kill show power Lioness rip crumple armor dead magic gone copper hair bloody dirty win win win revenge all-power Gate destroy Roald destroy King destroy Corus streets falling falling falling collapse woman running screaming dead children crushed bloody gown. _Horror... Nightmare... _ Chapel sink roof collapse Mithros brought down laugh laugh Conquer gods laugh destroy destroy revenge Burning burning field fire plowman burning scream, scream, can't escape laugh Most powerful all-powerful ALL-POWERFUL Death-bringer Land-destroyer, God-killer, arches falling buildings crumble buildings crumble die death revenge revenge revenge Twist hurt kill destroy _No... _Never forgiven never forgive never forgotten never forget never give in never give up never never never revenge revenge REVENGE destroy kill revenge always revenge many revenges many destructions people dead plague crawling man infect air kill kill infant girl baby boy baby kill kill kill mother father children Tortall nothing left nothing nothing revenge Kill-

Baron Thom of Pirate's Swoop felt a giant bell resounding in his ears. There was something hard at his back, too. And a terrible ache in his body. He tried to open his eyes. They wouldn't. He seemed to be lying on the floor. Strange. Then the truth behind his situation hit him: he had failed. Damn. Master Salmalín would yell at him. Stupid! Stupid fool! That sort of magic is never to be attempted. Never! You could have killed yourself!' But it should have worked. He had checked and double checked everythingLook to the mage! It all sounded very far away. Perhaps something had happened? Had he been hurt, then? Unconscious? That could happen, when a major spell backfired. He could hear footsteps and murmurs. Well, then. With an effort, he wrenched his eyelids apart. Fuzzy, blurred shapes were walking, scurrying; there seemed to be someone else on the ground as well, but perhaps it was only a cloak left all in a heap.

Oh Your Grace, he won't die, surely!If you will allow me, Mistress--Please, Father, don't bestir can take care of him. So. A healer would be with him. Thom himself did not Heal, though he knew the theory. Mother had certainly talked enough about it at home. And he had sustained serious injury before. Soon he would be losing consciousness again, only to wake up in a bed, later. How strange that no one was coming.

Quite sure you're well, Sire? No ill effects? Was King Jonathan here? In the University? But why? What had happened? Where was he? He put a hand to the ground, and tried to raise himself up. He collapsed again. But at least his vision seemed to be clearing. 

I don't know-- Aha. His chalk diagrams were gone. So something had worked. Of course all these people milling around were probably obliterating any traces of it. Idiots! If only he could examine the room, find out what parts of his enchantments had gone through and which had backfired. 

Oh Mithros! Goddess! No! But -- strange. He was lying on stone, not the wooden floor of his and Aziel's study. 

Please, Gods, please, he can't be dead! _He_ wasn't dead. Somewhere, a woman was having hysterics.

You are overwrought, Mistress. He isn't assure you. Where was he? Had the backlash been so violent as to blow him all the way to the Buttery? 

Drink this -- it will only calm you. -- Over here.My lord! No, that was ridiculous. Something so severe would have killed him, whereas he didn't seem to be injured, but only terribly weak.

Have you his pulse? And beside that, this stone was smooth, much older than the new College. And much dirtier. Thom shuddered as he realized what he was lying amidst. He rarely left the University, often sleeping in his study. He had only theoretical knowledge of the sort of place where one found human waste and food scraps mixed and ground together on the floor.

I'm not a novice at this, sir! pulse is good. Had the backlash sent him into delirium? But where was he? And why did no one come? He could see people moving beyond him, could hear their concerned voices. Had something else happened? Was it coincidence that he found himself here? Or had they already given him up for dead? Perhaps he had been unconscious for an entire day. Damn. Damn damn damn! That would go on his record, surely. There was bound to be some sort of academic tribunal. They wouldn't deny him his Mastery -- They couldn't do that! -- but it would be uncomfortable and embarrassing. And Aziel would smirk to no end, complacent in his own mediocrity. Damn Aziel!

What do you haven't drawn the circle, yet? Any could have happened? He was not injured, he was fairly sure of it. He tried again to shift himself into a sitting position, and succeeded better. The effort seemed to strain every muscle in his body, and he was out of breath by the time he finished. He could see better, too.

Please, my lord, please are all very tired. Everything seemed further away than usual. But the voices sounded familiar, when he could make them out.

--Majesty could have been been sitting here when who knows Gods only can say very lucky, my girl, that Only sat moment, Your Grace regain my strength forgive please Was that Galina? He squinted at the woman. Her hands were gesturing wildly as she seemed to be talking to first one man then another. She curtsied, then began to cast a spell. Wards. She was casting full wards. But why? Over what? And why was her golden-brown Gift gathering so slowly into her upraised palms? She must be quite tired; Galina (for so it must be by the color of her Gift) was a powerful mage. Not as powerful as he, of course. but not a weakling, either.

Shouldn't Lady here? Ridiculous. All this and they can't even Grace.Wouldn't be she wouldn't want the Lio-- All the talking around him suddenly burred to an indistinct hum. Thom panicked. He was injured. He was relapsing! He would lose consciousness again, even die! He tried to shout for help, then noticed the golden dome overhead. Galina had been warding _him. _Him. Why? He examined his arm. He didn't seem to be exuding anything. He smelled foul, true, but that was the effect of lying unconscious in in he still didn't know where he was, he realized. His skin didn't have any unusual cast or blemish. _Was_ he sick, then? Was it again only coincidence that he remembered nothing beyond finishing his chalkings and readying himself for the execution of his enchantments? Had he fallen ill of some sort of plague, that he had to be quarantined off? But surely it was more normal practice to shield the healer who examined the patient than to isolate the patient. And there was no healer present, at all. He tried to squint through the wards, to distinguish some face or some voice, but could only see shapes, could only hear the indistinct rustling of a myriad of conversations turned to whispers. 

Did they think he was dead? Panic welled up in him again. The air would grow stale, breathing more difficult, he would slowly suffocate No. No. Don't be ridiculous. Surely, they would have to realize that he lived. If he could only get their attention. No sound would get through the Wards, but perhaps they could see him enough as he could see them? Yes, the Ward was not fully opaque. If he could only stand up. But, perhaps -- he tried get up on his knees. He swayed, and had to reach down to steady himself on his hands. Pain shot through his forearms as his weight shifted onto them. But he could do it. It was only the pain of stiffness, he thought. Alan would have been able to tell him better, or Mother. But even unused to pain as he was, he did think that he could determine what was serious and what not. Now to move from two knees to one. It wasn't as difficult as he had anticipated. If only he had something to brace himself on, but he knew better than to try to grab onto the glittering dome overhead and around him. At best, his hands would simply slide on its surface. At worst, there might be something more malicious in the ward. He ought to probe it, in fact. Plans to stand momentarily forgotten, he began to summon up his power. But where the purple Trebond Gift should have collected between his palms, nothing came. He pulled harder at himself, and felt as though some place between his heart and his stomach were being scraped dry. Still nothing. He was drained. It couldn't have been so many days that he had been unconscious then. Even twenty-four hours should have replenished him to a great extent. He needed to get out. He needed to understand this. He needed to ask someone the date, or, better, what was happening. It was ridiculous!

With a wild burst of effort, of pure, thoughtless energy, he got to his feet. His head ached and his feet spun, but he didn't fall, and he barely noticed the disorientation. He couldn't go on like this anymore! He had to make them notice him!

I'm alive! He shouted as loud as he could. But he only heard an indistinct sound. He cleared his throat, moved his jaw. His teeth felt strange; he was aware of every one of them. He tried again. I'm alive! Let me out! It was better, though he doubted they could hear him. If only he could jump up and down, dance, wave, but he was afraid that if he tried, he would only make himself fall. But someone had noticed. Shapes were converging, moving towards him. Soon, there would be an end to this incessant and illogical waiting.

He was waiting, ready for them, when the ward lifted. 

he began to ask, even before he truly saw who had come to meet him.

On your knees, traitor-scum, someone said from far away. From behind him? He construed the words, but they made no sense to him. Why were Prince Roald, Duke Baird, Duke Gareth, Lord Raoul, Sir Gareth present in the absence of the king? He wondered for a moment, but there was a sudden sharp pain in his legs, and he collapsed. He was not prepared for the fall and could not catch himself. He closed his eyes against the burning hurt in his kneecaps and wrists.

I arrest you by the name of Thom of Pirate's Swoop for the crime of High Treason.


	13. Lady Eleni of Olau

_And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,  
And rob me of a happy mother's name?  
_--Richard II; V.ii.

It had not been the first time that the master of Olau had returned from the palace in the middle of the day. Nor had it been the first time he had arrived at his townhouse drunk. But it had been the first time -- at least since her marriage, Lady Eleni was quick to qualify -- that these two events had occurred together. She was an experienced woman who had seen many things, however, and she was quite capable of appropriate action. 

Quietly, girl! she hissed, more sharply than was her wont, at a serving-maid whose elbow came very close to knocking a ewer off the shelf as she maneuvered herself and her tray out the chamber doorway. The best thing to do had been to put him to bed with a powerful sleeping draught. In the ordinary course of things, Eleni would have been inclined to let her husband suffer the consequences of excessive drink. But, she thought with a sigh, the news could not be good if Myles returned without his daughter and in such a state. And indeed, Gods, Eleni,' he had muttered just before drifting into unconsciousness, they're going to kill him!'

It could be, she thought, that he hadn't been quite aware of what he was saying. His already wine-muddled mind would have been made even hazier by what she had just persuaded him to swallow. Perhaps he had been simply voicing his own fears for the worst; perhaps nothing had been decided. Or perhaps, even, she had misinterpreted his slurred words.

she called briskly. Svava, I want to you sit with my lord. Svava! Slowly, and with no expression in her big pale eyes, Svava Maggursdottir appeared from behind the curtain that secluded Eleni's solar. She curtsied. There was nothing impertinent in her manner, nothing even sullen. She simply impressed upon one complete indifference to everything around her. The Scanran warlord's daughter had been a trial to Eleni since her arrival after the end of the war. Myles had offered to take her into his home: she would be close enough to the Palace that she could be easily supervised, yet not so conspicuous as she would have been at Court, exposed to latent Tortallan hostility. Eleni repeated, her tone slow and clear, I want you to sit by Lord Myles's bed and watch over him. He has been ill. If he stirs, send for me. Svava curtsied again, giving no indication that she had heard anything, then shuffled down the hall to the bedchamber. 

Eleni sighed as she settled herself at her writing desk and began to go over the records of the apple harvests at Olau. She was sure that the girl understood everything that was spoken to her; she even spoke Common well-enough when necessity compelled it. When she had first arrived, Myles had tried draw her out with conversation in her own language, in which she had been almost as uncommunicative. Eleni, for her part, had always used Common. Not only was she completely ignorant of Scanran, but, she felt, the sooner Svava became acculturated to her adoptive homeland, the better. There was no reason to encourage her to pine for a brutal, barbaric homeland when she should, quite frankly, be grateful to be educated in and given the advantages of a civilized homeland. Not that Eleni had been anything but welcoming, of course. As much as her stomach had turned over when her lord had brought home the news that they would be housing the daughter of Maggur Rathausak, as much as the thought of any kin to that monster in her own home sickened her, she had been quite ready to due her duty by the Goddess and take the orphan in. Svava was pretty enough, even if she was a trifle washed-out looking, with her white-blond hair and pale skin. Even after the few months to settle in had turned to a year, then two -- even after she had found the girl crying for her _father_, of all people -- Eleni still a strange affection for her. The poor thing didn't know any better, after all, and it did have to be difficult, being wrenched away from all one's kin, even if those kin were some of the worst, most savage barbarians in all the world. Perhaps it was because she had never had a girl of her own, she thought, she was inclined to feel motherly to Svava in spite of her near-perpetual mood. After all, didn't all women complain of such things in their daughters? Eleni still had hopes of raising her to be a wife for her Thom. He could afford to marry a dowerless girl, and, in spite of her listlessness, Svava was intelligent, a good manager, as far as Eleni could tell. She would be able to look after the accounts of two fiefs easily. She wouldn't demand a fine, fashionable life at Court, which would suit him well. When Thom had his Mastery, and was fully engaged in his researches at the University, they even could live with Myles and herself. Everything would work out perfectly. 

Everything would have worked out perfectly. Eleni swallowed, the neat rows of figures blurring suddenly. The pain in her throat was unbearable. She pushed the ledger away. No use in trying to settle accounts now.

For over a decade, now, Thom had dined with them once a week, ever since he had entered the University. She could remember a little redhead crying and clinging to her skirts rather than walk back across the city to the Palace complex, unplacated by the promises that he would see his grandmother and grandfather soon, that he would soon love his classmates and his masters, that there would be a day when he wouldn't _want_ to leave his studies to dine with two old folk. It had been as much as she could do not to give orders to the steward for a space to be readied for him. But, of course, she was right, and it had been only a few months before Thom arrived bursting with stories to tell and made no fuss about leaving. No. It couldn't have been so long. It was only yesterday that she had stood there at that very window and watched Myles' man Gregory walk a frightened little boy down the street. Perhaps because he had come along when she had begun to despair that her redoubtable daughter-in-law would ever be willing to have a child, perhaps because Alan's life as a page had been more regimented, and because Alianne hadn't come to stay until she was old enough to want to flit about Corus instead of pass a quiet afternoon with Grandmother and Grandfather, -- whatever the reason, she knew Thom the best, loved him the best, even. Oh, she knew she she oughtn't to have favorites, but her Thom was so sweet, so thoughtful. He had never failed to come for his weekly visit, not once. Sometimes -- more often these later years -- he had simply shut himself up with Myles to talk about arcana, true, but when Myles had been out, he had talked to her, even spoken kindly to Svava. It had been how she had known that something wasn't right, that terrible day when a servant had come with a summons for Myles early in the morning. That day when she had been able to do nothing by sit and twist her hands, ready to snap at Svava as she sat calmly, as perfectly unconcerned as always, at her own embroidery. That day, Thom had been engaged to dine with them. And when the hours had passed, and neither message nor grandson had appeared, she had known. She could try to explain it away -- that with the uproar he hadn't had time ot send a message, that he had forgotten, that he was desperately needed -- but she had known, then.

Why was she standing here now? It was a moment before the memories cleared, and she could think in the present again.

She had known, then, that something was terribly wrong. Just as she knew, now.

She couldn't be still any longer. Eleni walked to the other end of the room, and stared out at the street from that view. If only they were at home, away and in peace at Olau! She couldn't possible go walking through Corus. A noblewoman didn't do such things alone, and, more, she couldn't bear to see the covertly but still staring eyes, to hear the mutters. For there would be mutters. No one could live privately here! Servants gossiped, tradesmen carried tales, and your business was soon on the tongues of the entire lower city. But if only she could walk through the doorway and down the grassy path to the orchards, pace in the anonymous peace of thick rows of trees. She had fallen in love with Olau from the moment Myles had brought her to his home; they were to have been there now. Even Svava had her best days there, in the country. They were to have left three days ago; Thom had promised to come up for a week or two when he had finished his current project. When he had finished his current project Eleni's hand crept involuntarily to her throat. It was very hard to swallow, suddenly, hard to breathe. She was tired, so tired. As she turned away from the window, watching dust floated in the sunlight, Eleni didn't know if she would have the energy to walk back down the corridor.


	14. Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau

"_So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;  
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,  
As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold."_  
--Richard II; V.iii

They had replastered the page's wing. The King's Champion was always taken aback at how familiar the low-ceilinged corridor was to her. There, in the corner by the stairwell, had been the place where a chip in the molding had marked the spot where her eating dagger had gouged out a piece when Ralon of Malven had tripped her headlong into the wall in her first few months as a page. Next to the nick, Gary had carved out the badge of Naxen -- and received a month's confinement to the Palace for it from his father. Right above that had been an ink-doodle of two knights jousting that Geoffrey had once spent the better part of a rainy afternoon in making. His signature had flourished all around the horsed figures, she remembered. Geoffrey's hand had been as neat and ordered as a scribe's lettering: we used to all tease him for it. But now the drawing was covered over in smooth white, and a new board had replaced the damaged one. Alanna reflexively ran her hand over it, searching for the old nick that was no longer there. Only in that it less weathered than its neighbors would one have been able to tell that there had once been another board in its place. And yet so much was the same. It was as though she had never been, had not spend four years in that very room, there, the second chamber from the far end. As though she had never been, indeed! Alanna shook herself out of her reverie. She was not here to idly reminisce. She had to talk to Fianola of Vassford(1). The crumpled paper was sweaty and damp in her fist. She smoothed it out to read again.

…_I beg Your Majesty not to think that I leave because I seek to shirk service to the crown, or because I lack the will or strength, whether of body or resolve, to complete my training, or because I entered lightly into it and now am under a retrograde whim. Rather, I have come to believe that my continuance on this course will do my family and my realm more ill than good. For this, and for the reasons I describe above, I humbly ask Your Majesty to accept my withdrawal of my candidacy for knighthood._

_I remain ever Your Majesty's obedient subject and commend my respectful duty to Your Majesty,_

_Fianola of Vassford_

She had not believed it when Roald had shown her the letter this morning. Fianola, the only daughter and heir of Lord Vassford, was not a spectacular candidate, though she was clearly equal to the boys with whom she trained. But she was in her fourth year as a page; she had not faced such trouble as Keladry had: she represented the possibility of commonplace Lady Knights, as unremarkable as their male peers. And now she was leaving. Sir Padraig had sworn to her, when she had confronted him this morning, that he had done nothing to her before she had come yesterday to speak to him about leaving -- not said one word to discourage the girl, that he was as surprised as she by the resignation.

She had thought up until today that her world could not fall apart more completely than it already head. She had thought that Jonathan's death, that Thom's… Thom's betrayal… that these were bad enough. But she had been strong. She had not succumbed to emotion, but had continued to do her duties, continued to be a knight and champion of the realm. Surely the Gods had had their fill of laughter at her expense! And now this, too. She knocked on the door at the end of the hall.

"A moment!" Came the call from within. It was considerably less than a moment later when the door opened. "Oh!" Gasped the opener, "My Lady Champion! I was just…" She started to gesture towards the space behind her, then remembered her manners and bowed, apparently remembering only at the last moment that she was wearing a kirtle, and not a short tunic. Blushing hard, she started to apologize as she straightened. "Please forgive me, my lady. It's only that I'm not quite accustomed… reaccustomed, I should say…" In the ensuing silence, Alanna scrutinized the girl. There were no tear marks on her cheeks, and here eyes were clear. Well, and had she expected to find her sobbing into her cot? "Forgive me, my lady," said Fianola, "Please, come in." She easily lifted what looked to be a heavy box from the small room's single chair. When Alanna neglected to take it, she stood awkwardly at ease. "If," Fianola began suddenly and in a rush, staring down at the floor, "if you've come about a squire my lady I haven't passed the big examinations yet and anyway I'm -- I'm leaving."

"The king informed me of your departure this morning," said Alanna. She and Keladry had been going to fight it out between them as to who would take Fianola of Vassford as a squire.

Fianola blushed harder. "I--" she seemed about to apologize, but thought better of it -- "How may I serve you, my lady?"

"By explaining to me why you're backing out, my girl. By giving me a good reason not to take you out to the practice courts and beat you into the dust to teach you to start things this important and not finish them. By providing me with a single acceptable excuse for undoing what Keladry and I have done, for giving the Conservatives someone to point to and say 'Look: women can't handle the rigors of knighthood.' I want answers, Vassford and they had better be good!"

The girl shrank away a little.

"It's what they'll say, you know," Alanna continued. It was cruel, perhaps, but it had to be said. She remembered another girl who had been shamed into staying on as a page… "I don't care what you think your reasons are: no one will believe them. But everyone will know that Fianola of Vassford didn't have what it takes to be a knight, that she was too much the coward and weakling -- too much the _woman_ to keep with her training. Even if you've changed your mind, girl -- and I had heard better of you than to expect that -- do you want to destroy the chances for every other girl who really can handle the rigors of it?"

Fianola swallowed, but she raised her eyes hesitantly to Alanna's own. "I hope that in four years I have earned some respect," she said, "that is, I mean that I have shown myself not to be fickle and trivial. I have explained myself. That must be enough for those who matter."

Alanna said nothing. 'And am I not one who 'those who matter'?' was on the tip of her tongue.

Fianola continued. "My lady, you must know, I want nothing more than to be a knight! It's all that I have dreamed of, ever!" She drew herself up. "I would die for king and country; I have always known that, as truly as I know that Mithros and the Goddess rule."

"And yet you leave?"

"I have other duties, my lady," she said, a little sadly. "I see now that I have been indulging myself. It's what I wanted -- to fight and win glory. But it isn't right. I'm needed in other places. I've spoken to Sir Padraig, haMinch, to my kinswoman Lady Hildegarde, to everyone I could think of. They've all agreed with me."

Alanna considered. HaMinch was a conservative; Hildegarde of Haryse had been a fixture of the court in her own time as a page. She realized suddenly that she knew next to nothing about the alignment of Clochar of Vassford or his family. She had assumed that because he permitted his daughter to enter training… but who knew what pressures Fianola was under from home?

"I, I've even spoken to the queen, my lady," Fianola said, interrupting her thoughts. "I'm going to enter Her Majesty's Ladies in a few years. And I'm going to keep learning from the arms master at home," she added.

"Fianola," Alanna said slowly. "You're completely free to choose your path. Even if your father demands that you return, you can stay if you wish. I'll speak to Sir Padraig, to the king, even. They'll support you. No one can prevent you from becoming a knight."

Fianola looked puzzled. "No, my lady," she said. "Father hasn't said anything. He doesn't know yet what I've decided; the letter won't have reached him. And he Aunt Unngerd weren't very opposed to my coming in the first place. My lady."

"You're hedging," Alanna said. "If you can't even give me a straight answer as to why you want to leave, how can you know yourself that it isn't just an excuse for weakness?"

"I am my father's only child," she said. "And he was his father's only son. I can't be a knight and be a chatelaine. I can't care for my lands and my children if I'm fighting for the crown. It isn't just that I want a family, my lady, but that I must have an heir, or my line ends with me. It's fine for Lady Knight Keladry: she doesn't need to marry."

"And you think that no one will marry you if you're a knight," Alanna began.

"I don't know about that, my lady," Fianola said quickly. "But when I do marry, I shall stay at home to raise my children and look after my fief. That's my first duty, and it's honorable. To be a knight on top of that -- I would have to do one or the other improperly, insufficiently. And that is wrong. It's selfish to want both, when I can't have but one, my lady."

Alanna wondered who had gotten at this girl. It was a new tactic, she thought. She had always known that the Conservatives would do anything, seize any situation to set Tortall back, to reimpose the yoke of absolute patriarchy, but this…

"So." It was absurd. Unbelievable. An intelligent capable girl being held back by accusations that she was selfish! "Now that we've proved, you, and Keladry, and I, that a woman _can_ be a knight, that she _is_ equal to a man, they try to tell us that she shouldn't do it for moral reasons? It's just another version of what they've always been trying to do -- to set us back -- I hope you understand!"

"No one has 'tried to tell' me anything, my lady. But I have always known that a noblewoman has a duty to her family and her people. The Book of Mithros tells us so. I thought I could do both, but after--" She broke off.

"--I don't want chaos, I don't want to undermine everything that nobility means and does for the realm," she continued after a moment. "It would be wrong, my lady, to insist on having my way, insist on doing what I want, when it will only be an evil in the long run." There was a fervency in her voice, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone, Alanna thought. "It isn't the best way, my lady, but surely _you_ understand how much there is to lose if I do this. Surely _you _understand why its better that I go home."

No. It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be. "So this is what it comes to," Alanna said, trying to keep her voice soft and superficially calm. "Say out loud and clearly, get to the point of it, Vassford: blame me for what my son has done. That's what they've told you, isn't it?" She pressed, seeing Fianola's stricken look. "I wasn't a good mother, that was it! I've heard the whispers: 'what can you expect from a boy with a unnatural mother and commoner father.' 'It's no wonder he went bad, the poor boy was confused about right and wrong from the very beginning, when his mother was off fighting giants when she should have been telling him tales of chivalry.' 'It's divine punishment on her for her presumption: she tries to take a man's place as Champion, and her own son turns on the king.' And you believe this? You've let them twist your mind against your own rights?"

At some point, Fianola had clasped her hands behind her back. "It is true, my lady," she said, "that I may have the right to train as a page and a squire. I have a right to earn my shield. But I have a duty not to," she repeated. "Forgive me, my lady, but things were different for you and for Lady Keladry. No one knew, before, that anything bad could come out of a woman being a knight." She had tensed her body as if she expected to be struck.

"And so this--" is what you think, then, Alanna would have said, but she was cut off.

"It isn't your fault, that your son became a traitor, my lady," Fianola said, her voice anxious and overly concerned. "It couldn't possibly be." Was the girl actually trying to comfort her? The presumption of the young and confident was not to be believed! "You couldn't possibly have known how things would turn out, my lady. And you've done such wonderful things for Tortall. No one could want you not to have done what you did." Awe and admiration had begun to replace kindness. "But it's too dangerous," she continued. "I see that now. It's too dangerous for a woman to be away from her home and her place."

Alanna did not respond. The girl was really determined to leave. She had truly been persuaded, whether by others or by her own self, that she should not try for her shield. All the struggle, the tests, the endurance: all would be for naught.

"The Code of Chivalry says that we have to make sacrifices," Fianola was saying, her voice becoming higher and faster, shakier. "And shouldn't I be bound by the Code as much as any man? I have to do this! I have to!"

"Don't let me stop you," Alanna said. "And when you're at home with your senile husband and drooling children, tied to your castle and helpless, you can thank me." She turned and walked out. As she snapped the door shut behind her, she heard the suffocated sounds of something falling, and a burst of wailing, which quickly subsided into sobs. She considered going back for a split moment, but no: she had tried, and all she could do now was add another tally -- a great thick black one -- to the count against that worthless, that treacherous, that -- her son.

* * *

(1). I believe that 'Fianola' was the name of one of the girls who spoke to Keladry at some point during _Squire_ about knighthood. I did not recall any fief mentioned. If I have erred, please point it out and I will (probably) correct it. (I do not have access to the books right now.) -- A.R.  



	15. Veralidaine Sarrasri Salmalín

"_That's a perilous shot out of an  
elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can  
do against a monarch!"_  
--Henry V; IV.i

That Sarralyn wanted to go was the first problem. "Absolutely not," said Veralidaine Sarrasri-Salmalìn. A trial was no place for children, after all. Sarralyn had begun to cry. In vain, her mother had tried to remonstrate with her. "Mummy and Da don't want go, Sarra, dear. You wouldn't like it at all; it will be crowded, and scary, and very long. You'll be much happier at home with Rikash and Ander." Ander Carpenter, one of Numair's students, was usually a favorite for his stories, but not so today.

"But I want to go with you!" Sarralyn had insisted, stamping her foot.

"You cannot go, Sarralyn," Veralidaine had said at last, her patience worn thin. "The king has forbidden it." This was not strictly true, of course, though she was fairly sure that a restless and uncomprehending child would be less than welcome. And she and Numair had to give the best appearance possible, for it might easily become his turn to stand in the prisoner's dock. It was necessary that they seem as law-abiding and Gods-fearing as the most unassuming and unnoticeable subjects, and to this end she herself wore a properly long skirt and indisputably modest and woman's-styled bodice. Not, of course, that she could explain any of this to her daughter.

But Sarra had continued to pout and cry, and in the end, she and her husband had barely been able to crowd into a space in a niche along the back wall before the appointed hour of the trial. Harailt and his lady Marina had places on the front benches, Daine couldn't help but notice, and Gautier of Jesslaw and Lindhall Reed had also managed to find sitting space. Galina Fletcher was even later than they, however; she wormed her way into a place beside Numair.

" 'Morning," she said, nervously smoothing her dress. She was nearly white and seemed rather unsteady.

Daine put her hand on the younger woman's arm. Galina had been Numair's student; had become his colleague only a year ago. She and Thom had worked together on and off; everyone knew that they had been sharing research up until the end. "You look terrible," Daine whispered to her. "Have you been sleeping, Galina? Have you been to a healer?"

Galina waved her concern away. "I'll manage -- I think. Just a little tired. I still haven't recovered from that working of yours," she explained to Numair, her tone half in mocking accusation. "And they questioned me hours and hours yesterday. Up 'til midnight answering questions; defending myself and my research." No need to ask who 'they' were. "It was worse than my Mastery Tribunal," she joked lamely. "I wouldn't have minded a seat now, though," she said, scanning the room critically, "but it seems you've got to be quite important to get one of those." Veralidaine wasn't sure how she could take it all so lightly, but that was Galina: she made gallows humor mask her real concerns as long as she knew she could get away with it.

"Surely they didn't keep you standing all that time," Numair said out of the side of his mouth.

"Oh, they gave me a chair after I nearly collapsed onto the clerk's table," Galina said.

"And you've been to see a Healer?"

Galina swayed slightly, and clutched Numair's arm. "Ah… no, actually. I went straight to my workroom to put my things in order -- you know, all the 'dangerous' notes on top so it's obvious I'm not trying to hide them, the papers about applications to Defense and Healing prominently displayed… Took off my more… esoteric… wards, too."

"That bad, eh?" Numair might have been talking about the weather, but Daine knew that he, too, had spent quite a bit of time preparing his research for the Palace's inevitable investigation.

"I'm quite sure they'll be coming to confiscate it all," Galina said with a tenuous nonchalance. "Even as we speak, maybe. And I'll have the Black God himself on me if they find trouble, or think they've found it. Her voice dropped even further. "I tried to write up a few précis for myself, too, just so's to have a record. For I doubt I'll be seeing any of it again." Daine could hear a catch in her voice, barely audible as it was.

Daine squeezed their friend's free hand. "It will be all right, Galina, truly," she said, but the words were at least half-empty.

"I didn't want to come," Galina muttered, brushing something from her eye. "I don't want to see this; I saw enough when I warded him after… well, you know."

Daine shuddered. She didn't want to think about those few hours when Numair had been unconscious, completely drained from taking the largest burden of the power-sharing spell he had set up. In spite of all Nealan of Queenscove had done, her husband, too, was not completely back to us usual strength, either magically or physically. Daine privately wondered if the heir of Queenscove hadn't purposely skimped on the healing. Once she would never have believed it, but every day -- no, every hour, it seemed -- brought more evidence of a grudge against the University and its mages. She wouldn't put it past a court mage to self-righteously withhold full treatment in order to 'punish' someone he held partially responsible for regicide. It would be unlike Sir Nealan, she admitted, but even so…

"It kills me," Numair was saying quietly. "He's so young -- he doesn't deserve this." He shook his head. "He was a fool, yes; but all this for a mistake?"

A dour-looking man -- Daine thought he might be from the Law College -- was looking at their group with distaste, even with fear. He turned to the woman beside him, drawing her closer to his body and further from them. "Shush," Daine warned, "some things are better left unsaid."

"True enough," Galina said. She sighed. "Particularly when we're here for our own damn benefit anyway. Not one of them cares what testimony we could give."

"They've already heard our testimony," said Numair, "no use for them to hear it again." Perhaps, Daine thought, he was hoping to make up for anything his earlier words might have stirred.

"They got the testimony they wanted," Galina said darkly. Daine wondered if the lack of sleep, overwork, and general stress were making Galina slightly unbalanced, or if she had perhaps turned to drink to ease their effects. "They asked the questions. But they didn't get the testimony I could give." But her breath didn't smell of alcohol, and even when drunk (as Daine had seen her on occasion) she usually knew when she was approaching the line where mocking and complaining became sedition -- or worse. By any stretch, she was quickly crossing it, now. In spite of herself, Daine looked around. Nearly everyone else was gossiping too, many in voices far louder than theirs. And even if anyone had heard, well, it couldn't be a secret that many of the University mages were less than pleased with the turns events were taking.

"But I didn't dare stay away," Galina said to Numair.

"I don't think anyone did, not after the Speller incident. What an idiot." Bohemund Speller had proposed at the previous day's faculty meeting that all the University Masters boycott the trial in protest of the Crown's dampening of their freedom. "Harailt gave him an official reprimand, of course. You can't tolerate that sort of rebellion." Daine thought her husband might not be opposed to Speller's opinion in principle -- Galina certainly wasn't -- but neither -- indeed, no one -- could afford to support something so radical now. They were in enough jeopardy as it was.

"So what did they say about your research," Numair asked quietly.

"They didn't much care about mine," Galina said, "only about his. I tried to explain it in terms a non-specialist could understand, but I hope I didn't make it worse, what they were thinking."

"Of course." Numair nodded slowly. "It hadn't even occurred to me. The Marinn Codex sounds much more dangerous than it is."

"Particularly when you explain what all that gnomic Old Thak actually means. Raising the dead, controlling the dead -- but that wasn't what Thom was using it for at all!"

Veralidaine didn't bother to follow the technical discussion that followed. Instead she examined the courtroom. It did seem that Galina had called it rightly: the benches were almost entirely occupied by nobles, greater and lesser. Mostly lesser, she noted: the greater were probably waiting to enter with the monarchs. In spite of the weight that the knowledge had been, it was a moment before she realized that she didn't mean Jonathan and Thayet, but Roald and his Yamani-born Princess. But there was Nealan of Queenscove, who had once chased her with an adolescent lust, but who now sat contented with his Lady Yukimi. There was Adhemar of Nond, Burchard of Stone Mountain, Padraig haMinch. And there was Myles of Olau, who with his Lady Eleni had visited her with gifts for the children not a week before the King's death. How furiously she had silently fumed through their kind words and small talk that day! Then, as always, she had resented swallowing pride to take and give thanks for what gently-born benefactors -- for even among such friends she and her family were dependants and not true equals -- bestowed. Now, she had to hope that the claims of friendship that had prompted a new jerkin for Rikash and two cast-off gowns to be done up smaller for Sarralyn would extend to support for Numair, should he find himself, in spite of vague royal assurances to the contrary, in the front of a courtroom instead of along its back wall. Today, however, Sir Myles sat alone. Neither his wife nor adoptive daughter the Lioness was with him -- she supposed that the Champion would come with the court. His ward -- what was her name? Svanni? Svetlana? Maggur's daughter, at any rate -- was absent as well. Veralidaine had tried speaking to her once, asking her about the rumored Scanran shape shifters. The girl hadn't replied, and Veralidaine had mentally dismissed her as a proud, haughty little thing, one whom she didn't have time to worry about.

"Don't you think so, dear?"

"Yes, of course." Veralidaine answered her husband absently, still watching Sir Myles. Could Lady Eleni not bear to see her grandson brought to trial? How was it that she had that easy excuse of pain where Numair, Thom's advisor and teacher, or Galina, his sometime fellow, did not?

"You aren't really listening, are you, Daine." No one would think to accuse Lady Eleni of treason. She could have sympathy, and openly, too, for Thom. She could mourn him, cry for him him, wear her black not only for the king, and no one would dream of censuring her. But they had to guard their words against too much regret and comfort for Thom of Pirate's Swoop.

"Of course I'm listening. Heads up." Without the usual flourish in this time of deep mourning, which would barely have been audible over the roar of voices, in any case, the arrival of the king was heralded only by the preceding entrance of the other court notables.

Numair reached to clench her hand in his as they watched the informal procession of nobles file down towards the raised benches at the front of the court room. As when she had scanned the hall, some of their faces were instantly familiar, while others were only recognizable pictures of distant power, and a few, almost unknown. Gareth of Naxen. Baird of Queenscove. Turomot of Wellam. Gareth the Younger. Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak. Vanget haMinch. Imrah of Legann. Alanna of Trebond and Olau. The Dowager Queen Thayet. How much softer and more deeply black their heavy satins and velvets seemed! Even among the varying dark colors and blacks of the standers and sitters, these nobles were a thousand times more solemn. And finally, when the great lords had taken their places, Roald, king in certain actuality if not quite yet in name. Veralidaine dropped into her deep curtsy as he approached; she saw his boots, and the furred edge of Princess Shinkokami's gown as the royal passed. It seemed to be an age before Roald had guided his wife to the handsome chair placed on the top step but one of the dais and had seated himself in the King Throne.

As she rose, and as those fortunate enough to have seats settled into them, she noticed that Numair had his eyes closed and his head slightly bowed. "You aren't on trial," she reminded him ever so quietly when he opened them.

"It isn't for myself that I'm afraid."


	16. Dowager Queen Thayet

"_A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;  
For I am she, and altogether joyless."_  
--Richard III; III.i

Thayet of Conté tried very hard to concentrate on the proceedings before her. It was much more difficult to attend when one was not sitting in the hard Queen-throne, but instead on a soft and cushioned chair -- the prerogative of the decrepit old Dowager. It was not simply the hardness of that seat, empty, now, until Shinkokami was crowned queen, which enforced its occupant's attention, but the vantage. There, one was on display; there, one was a Prince, a Lawgiver, Mithros's Deputy; there, one could not wander off into one's own grief. She wondered how Roald was bearing it. Well, she supposed; he was a Conté, and it was his birthright.

"Before Mithros, is this the truth that you have spoken?"

Without truly heeding, she saw Alan of Pirate's Swoop swallow and look straight at Turomot of Wellam. "Before Mithros, I swear that it is."

Thayet did not remember, suddenly, what testimony the boy had given. She knew that she ought to know, and she _did_ know -- she was not doting away into senility; she knew what had happened and what was happening -- but she did not care. Jonathan was dead.

Why was she so weak, still? Why was she so given over to weeping? It should not be thus; she should be stronger. Roald needed her guidance; Lianne and Vania her comfort. When George had died, Alanna had fought off a hurrok attack three days later. She had given some sympathy then, or what she had thought was sympathy. Now, she wondered. She remembered thinking to herself that she could have the same shoulder to cry one, the same friend to support her, when the day came that she, too, lost her husband. And, of course, she could not. That interview had been among the most terrible of the condolences she had received.

The Lioness had requested a private audience. And having it, she had knelt --Alanna, kneeling! -- and had begged forgiveness. She had been paralyzed and weeping. "Get up, get up," she had said, and Alanna would not. "Can you forgive me, Majesty, having such a son?" It had been too terrible. What could she have said to it? She hated that son, then. But, of course, she could not say that. One did not say such a thing. "There is nothing to forgive," she had said. "I loved my king," Alanna had said. "He was the best of lords; the most just." Thayet had thanked her, had taken her hands in her own.

There was always this divide, this isolation. Queens did not have confidantes in their husbands' vassals. Her husband… _oh, Jonathan, oh, my lord…_

But she was not even a queen, now. A queen had duties, responsibilities; queens were not left alone to sink into their shadowy sorrows. If someone would only make her do something: was there an ambassador to be received? A petitioner to be heard? But no, no one would be so cruel as to worry the old dowager so sunk into grief. They could make do without her, for a time. She was left to pray and to be consoled. Truly, she did not know if she had the energy to do anything more. Jonathan was gone.

She had to pull herself together. She had to.

"Is there any man or woman, before Mithros and King Roald and this court, who would speak further?" Turomot of Wellam's voice did not waver, in spite of his age.

Thayet breathed deeply, willing herself to concentrate. It was not simply about herself and her loss. Here was a man stood to be condemned to die in justice. What did Alanna watch but the infinitely slow death of her child? What did Alanna do but agree that the death of her king should be followed by the death of her son? Thayet would have put her head in her hands and cried at the stupidity of it all, and the sadness. But no, that was no son, that was not Thom of Pirate's Swoop who stood so wan and dark-eyed in the criminal's dock. It was a monster, an unnatural thing! She did not care if the spirit had been dispossessed. The man remained, and the man had wrought the magic; the man had held the dagger. Was it her hot Sarainù blood that was roused out of its stupor only by the thought of vengeance? She wondered if any of the multitude who doubtlessly were not watching the old queen would have guessed, had they been looking at her, the rage that was within.

"If it please His Majesty, I would address him, before he makes judgment." That voice did quaver, a little. Thayet did not know Lindhall Reed well; she had never had a great interest in his bones and sinews, and the non-magical sciences were little concern of the Crown, in any case. With her son's, "Please you to speak freely, Master Reed," the old man got to his feet and bowed.

"Sire, I am a simple biologist. I can add nothing to the evidence presented, nor do I claim to be well versed in law. Certainly, I do not seek to introduce rhetoric to a trial that has been free from the sophistry of advocates." He paused, and stared at the ground. "It is difficult for me to know what to say. Am I a loyal subject of the Crown? I hope that I am. I hope that there is not a one in this room who is not, and who does not grieve King Jonathan and wish that he, as he rests with Mithros, will be given here as well the justice that is his due."

Thayet watched Roald as the master spoke. Reed was eloquent enough, for all his profession of simplicity. He spoke about the duty of the academic, and the dangers of too much knowledge. The entire University had learned a terrible lesson from this, and no one more surely than Thom of Pirates' Swoop. But what was it really that Thom had done? It was a mistake that had happened to have disastrous consequences.

"It is true, and no one will contest it," Lindhall Reed was saying, "that it would be just if Thom of Pirate's Swoop were condemned. But I beg Your Majesty to consider and be merciful. King Jonathan did not wish to begin his reign with executions; he spared those who were complicit in his overthrow, and the death of his own parent. If I may be permitted to advise Your Majesty, it is often a greater thing to show clemency than severity."

Raoul of Goldenlake and Malories' Peak had folded his arms. He sighed. Thayet looked at him; another time, she might have smiled. Lord Raoul did not ever have patience for long speeches, or for mawkish sentiment. But what if Roald were swayed. He was young, filled with ideas of his own nobility… No, that she could not bear!

"The king is sensible," said Lord Raoul softly. "Sure Your Majesty need not fear for his discernment in this case."

His comfort did not help. That precious, brief equilibrium had fled. _Jonathan, Jonathan, they are going to free him; they are going to let him go… _The days stretched in front of her. Days when she would meet her husband's murderer in the garden, where she would have to smile and extend her hand to be taken in the hand of the a traitor. It was not possible. They might as well kill her as do that.

She did not notice that she was clenching the arm of her chair until she felt a hand on her sleeve, and belatedly saw Princess Shinkokami kneeling at her side. Why had she left her seat? What was happening? Thayet realized that even Roald was looking at her. "Are you well, madam?" Her daughter-in-law asked.

"I--" It was too much, though some part of was incredulous that she could be so weak, so _womanish,_ as to let her grief overtake her at this moment. "You have killed him!"

The duke of Wellam was the one who broke the silence. "Will Your Majesty pass judgment, now?" He said after the quiet had gone on too long.

Thayet looked up towards her son. As he stood, she had to lean upon Shinkokami to rise with the rest of the room. It was dizzying to be on her feet as so long sitting. She swayed, and Lord Raoul offered another arm to clutch at. She prayed, to Mithros, to her childhood gods, to the Horse Lords of the K'miri, that Roald would do what was needful.

"Thom of Pirates' Swoop," Roald said, "I do not seek vengeance for myself and know that I forgive any wrong that I might claim from you. But I will not stop justice from taking her due, and the law cannot allow a traitor, even a partially-unwitting one, to live. Therefore do I condemn you to death."

* * *

Minor revisions: 7-6-06


	17. Alan of Pirate's Swoop

"_For if, look you, he were my brother, I would  
desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put  
him to execution; for discipline ought to be used._"  
--Henry V; III.vi.

Alan of Pirates' Swoop had never been in the dungeons before. As he walked down the passage, he shivered, and not only at the cold dry air. Alan realized that he had no idea why he had come, or what he hoped to do. What could he do, what could he say that would not seem like gloating, like lording it over Thom that he, the younger son, the mediocre one, the least promising of Mother's children -- hadn't he heard Grandmother damn him with the faint praise of 'a steady plodder' when compared to his sister's 'brilliant spirit'? -- had done right when the favored elder had done wrong? Was it only to ease his own self, then, that he came? Was it that he wanted to be able to say that he had been compassionate, that he had cared, that he had cried for his brother? Stupid, stupid, thoughtless, and vain! Was King Jonathan so distantly dead that he could forget his demanded duty and give sympathy to his murderer? But Thom was his brother; since Father's death, Thom was the titular head of his own family. You couldn't ignore family, not now, particularly, with Aly so far away and Mother so hard to speak to.

Alan knew that he must be magnifying the issues, trying to complicate things that ought to be straightforward. Did he think of himself as some sort of tragically undone victim of the gods, that the two losses, the one of his overlord, the other of his brother, tore him to pieces? But no, he had always wanted to have it both ways. That was the key to it all. He had always wanted to assure himself a place on each side of the fence. He remembered with shame that dreadful day in Sir Myles's class, in his second year as a page. They had been talking about something -- he didn't remember what -- no, he told himself firmly, he did remember, but he didn't like to remember; he pretended he didn't remember -- about the concessions made to the merchants over tariffs between fiefs, and Sir Myles had yelled at him. "Pick an opinion and live with its consequences!" He had said. Sir Myles had been perfectly justified of course, Alan reminded himself as he felt his forehead and cheeks start to warm just in the memory of it. That was why he didn't like to think about it -- the shame came from knowing that Sir Myles, that his grandfather, not to mention all of those other pages, saw him revealed as an opportunist who couldn't stand to be wrong.

It was the same thing, now. He knew that they accused Mother of being cold; of being an unnatural mother because she had refused to intercede for Thom, had refused even to see him. He didn't want to be called unfraternal. He _wasn't_ unfraternal. He did love his brother. He had loved his brother. If he had not loved his brother -- don't think about that, he told himself. Don't think about that -- It would be a waste of everything not to love his brother now. But his mind would not gloss to the conclusion so easily. If you had not loved your brother, if you had not trusted your brother, it told him, you would not have been so slow to battle him down that night when he was possessed by a fiend. If you had not so loved your brother, your king would not be dead. He had been trying to block the thought out ever since the trial.

Several voices were quick to battle it down. He had told all of this to Master Abelard, who had absolved him of guilt. It was a great honor to receive spiritual counsel from the Archpriest of Mithros, this voice told him, and surely Master Abelard knows more about such things than you do. Another voice, strangely like the training master's chimed in. _Your business is to fight for Tortall and defend the Crown; when a priest tells you to do something, you do it -- you don't want to offend the Gods. Go to Temple, pray, make the proper sacrifice and ask Mithros's blessing, but don't go burrowing into theology where it doesn't concern you. _Surely it was enough if both Sir Padgraig and Master Abelard could tell him that he had done nothing wrong. It must be enough. And it could not be wrong to pity Thom, and to wish that he had not become what he had; it could not be wrong to go to him, so that he would not be all alone.

"What's your business?"

Alan presented his token. Roald had been kind enough to grant his request and he carried the Conte signet as proof of his right of entry. "I… the king permitted…" he stammered. Why was he so incapable of normal interaction? "See… Thom of Pirate's Swoop…" But not with King Jonathan, then he could talk: those evenings, when he had been kept ostensibly to serve as the king talked and taught his son; those awe-filled moments when he stood by, listening as Tortall was governed; and when King Jonathan had said, "what think you, Alan?" he had not had difficulty answering. He swallowed away the pain in his throat and shut his eyes tight against the tears.

"All right. But I won't let y' alone wit' him. No telling what he might do." Alan nodded automatically, putting the ring back into a safe pouch.

The guard opened the door for him, but held himself back as Alan went forward into the cell. They would have some privacy of talk, it seemed. At least the cell was not dirty, Alan thought. The rushes over the floor were fresh, and the stone walls dry enough. And Thom, too, wore good enough garments, of poor cloth and long use certainly, but neither befouled nor ragged. He did not look up as Alan approached the corner where he sat.

"Thom… I…" Eyes flicked up and around, but the body did not move. "Thom, it's me -- Alan." He had said it stupidly. Of course Thom knew who he was! He knelt, clumsy on the straw, and put an arm around his brother.

A hand reached to take his other hand. "I didn't think you would come."

"Mother--"

"I expect she was the first to argue against me in Council." Again, there was that eerie, unnatural calmness in Thom's voice.

"She doesn't know what to think, Thom. She can't think to do anything else." It was a hollow and useless comfort.

"I understand. I made my bed, and I can lie in it. That's the way of the world. There!" Thom turned suddenly to face him. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Don't I make a properly penitent traitor? 'I pray Mithros forgive me and I welcome my death as my deserving.'" He parroted the last phrase with horrible mockery.

"I… I don't…"

Thom shook his head. "Don't listen to me, Brother. You're going to be a knight, a faithful vassal: don't let me pervert you."

"Pervert me? How…"

Thom closed his eyes. "I am… not going to see you again," he said very slowly after a moment. "Alan." He was more urgent now. "Alan. If I can't put away the pretense now, what can I do?"

"What pretense?"

A hand waved vaguely. "All of it. The pretense of living. The gradations of speaking, of irony, of saying what ought to be said, or what ought not to be said, simply because it ought not to be said. I'm not going to see you again… Alan…" He convulsed. "Don't leave me!"

"Of course I'm not--"

"I don't want to die!" There was nothing that Alan could say to that. "Oh, I'm not stupid, Alan, I can see the justice; I can see the rightness; but I'm a man. I'm a young man. I can't just be… gone." _Thom, _Brother, _why didn't you think of this? What about the king? He didn't deserve to die either. _"Aly has children: they'll never know me. You'll have children: I'll never see them. Grandmother… Grandfather… if I see them again, it will be on my execution day." He wrenched out of Alan's hold and got up on his knees to face his brother. "I cannot reconcile myself to death, Alan."

"I don't think," Alan said hesitantly, "that anyone is really embittered towards you. King Roald forgives." Which was all mostly a lie: Mother at least pretended to be embittered, and at least half the court. Whether Roald genuinely bore no grudge he had no idea. "And the gods surely recognize that it was accident, and not malice."

"No," said Thom. Alan stared at him. "Can you really tell me that I will be executed justly and yet the Black God will welcome me to the Blessed Fields?"

That unspoken alternative in Thom's voice was too horrible to contemplate. Too, too awful. It had to be that dying would absolve the mistake. The gods could not be so cruel to make it otherwise. "But, Thom," Alan said finally. "What could you think would happen? How could you have done it?"

There was silence, and Alan wished he could have kept his question back. Thom looked away for the first time. "I'm the older brother," he said at last. "I know I'm supposed to set the example, all the more, after Father died. And all I can give you, in the end, is a bad example, I suppose. A warning.

"You can't understand, Alan, nor Mother, nor anyone what it means to be finding things -- really discovering things -- and doing things that no one has done before. Three quarters of the advanced students at University don't understand it. And once you've done it, once you've made something that no one else has ever made, you can't go back to just using old spells and old ways. You _don't_ understand," he said, seeing, Alan presumed, his brother's face. "How else can I tell you? It's using my mind and my Gift. To use what the gods gave me to the greatest possible extent: I had to believe -- have to believe -- that could never lead me astray. I have to trust in the best power of my reason and my ability. There's nothing else."

"But what you were…"

"It had nothing to do with that." Thom waved away the objection impatiently. "It was a mistake, an unforeseen consequence. Yes, I fucked it up, somehow." Alan said nothing. He had never heard his brother swear, and the obscenity hung between them. "But I can't believe I'm going to die for it. Alan, I can't die; I can't even imagine dying." Thom's voice was pleading now, as though he, Alan, Little Brother, could do something.

Thom didn't understand, Alan thought. He didn't see that there were some things that men were not made to meddle in, that some things were the provenance of the gods for a very good reason. He couldn't comprehend that he had done anything wrong. But at the same time, Alan felt horribly sad. If Thom didn't understand, who was he to try to break his illusion? "Oh, Thom." He hugged his brother hard.

Thom winced away with a gasp. "What is it?" Alan asked. "Are you hurt?"

His brother made a negating motion. "Just a bruise. They--" he hazarded a nod toward the guard silent at the back of the room "-- thought they'd help me along to the Black God." He took his breath in quickly, doubling over, and Alan knew that this pain was not from any physical harm.

"I can… I can heal that," Alan said, hesitating. "I'm not very good," he added. "You know, but I can probably do a bruise or two."

Thom swallowed and nodded, silent. It was harder than Alan had thought it would be, to collect his thoughts enough to focus his Gift to do the healing. "It would have been better if I had been able to do that, perhaps," Thom said softly, watching the blackness slowly retreat to nothing. "But then I wouldn't have learned all the things I did, so…" he trailed off.

Alan shook his head before he could stop himself. How can you say it was worth it? He wanted to ask. King Jonathan is dead. DEAD. You're going to die. How can that be worth some dangerous magical spell that it would be better not to know anyway?

"No, I'm sure you're right, Alan," Thom said, as if reading his mind in spite of his silence. "It isn't a worthwhile trade, not a sensible, good one. Except for me. For me, it _was_ worth it, and perhaps that itself is enough a crime to hang me. But what am I doing?" he exclaiomed, suddenly angry. "Playing the martyr, or the penitent. It's all false, but I don't know how to be true!"

"What do you mean?" The biggest bruises were almost gone.

"Alan. Believe me: I did not plot to murder King Jonathan. And I can see how despicable I must be for what I've done. I can see it. But I--" Thom put his face in his hands for a moment. "I think about death, and I'm so frightened; I can't desire it, although I know I should, and I can't even imagine anyone coming to terms with it."

"No," said Alan. "I've seen death; I've seen people die--" Lord Geoffrey doubled over in the snow; Marcus of Wellam, his eyes wide and blank and limbs horrible disjointed; King Jonathan falling… Don't think about those things! Alan pulled himself back. "And death _is_ terrible," he said, aware that this was not the right thing to say to a condemned man.

"There have always been expectations," Thom said. "There are things one is supposed to say, and things one is supposed to do, and then, there are things that one isn't supposed to say, and so one is actually supposed to say them, simply because they aren't what's supposed to be said. And that: it's the way it must be, the way it should be. But at some point, you become aware of all of these layers, and you wonder what you really would say, or do, if none of them were there, and then you can't say anything because you're so fixed on all of this analysis that it all becomes meaningless. Maybe if I had been able to say the right things, and speak, and plead, I wouldn't be here, about to die."

"It wouldn't have helped," Alan said, feeling guilty for breaking this illusion, too. "It had nothing to do with… with saying the right things."

"And even there," Thom said angrily, "even that last thing. It's the sort of excuse you would expect someone in my position to give, isn't it? How do I know that's what I really mean, or really think, and not just an opinion that I know is standard? But maybe it really is what I mean, and I'm only rejecting it because I think that one ought to reject that sort of "standard" opinion. Sometimes," Thom said, "I think it doesn't matter at all, and I only do this to distract myself from what I know is coming." He reached to hug his brother again.

Alan did not know what to say. "I'm so sorry, Thom."

"Tell Aly that I love her, will you, Alan?"

"Of course I will."

"And tell Grandmother that I love her, and I give my love to Svava, and that… that I'm not sorry to be dying for what I've done." Alan was sure his confusion showed on his face. Hadn't Thom just said that he wasn't… "It will make her happy, at least," Thom said. "You see, I can be noble and honorable and say the right things, after all. But tell Grandfather the truth; he'll understand, I think."

Alan nodded. He would not forget this. He did not think that he could possibly forget it.

"And, Alan? Pray for me, if you can."

Alan nodded. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. A few breaths later, he tried again. Still nothing. "I…" Breathe. "I… shall I… ask for… ask for… for a…" Breathe. "…A… a priest to come?" Thom had never been very religious. "It might make it… easier."

Thom nodded, eyes wide. "And if I'm going to die, why shouldn't I die as peacefully as I may?" Alan heard him say, half to himself.

They stood up, Alan helping his older brother to his feet.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Alan. I love you, and I'm so proud to be your brother." Thom's embrace was shockingly weak. Alan compensated by holding his brother tighter.

"Oh, and Alan?"

He wasn't sure if he could speak without tears. "Yes?"

"Tell Mother that I love her and I'm sorry for what I've done."

* * *

So… should I up the rating for inconsistency of tone and too much sentimentality?

* * *

Small revisions: 31-7-06  



	18. Fianola of Vassford

_Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow  
Serves to say thus, 'some good thing comes__  
to-morrow.'__  
--_Henry IV Part Two; IV.ii

Fianola of Vassford paused as she crossed the yard for one last time. Her belongings had been sent off the this morning, and tonight she would be fifteen miles outside Corus at Great-Aunt Sebila's estate. "I'll be on in a moment," she called to the man-at-arms, who had by now gotten some distance ahead, and she watched him raise a hand to his forelock in acknowledgement.

She had made the right decision. Once upon a time, she had imagined coming home weary from her knightly duties and greeting laughing children; whenever she had practiced a drill she had imagined how she might teach it to her son, or her daughter. But she was fifteen years old, now; she was wiser, now.

She should hurry on. It was getting dusky already; the seasons were changing rapidly, and she shouldn't have delayed. But she hadn't thought that bribing the Post would have taken so much time. She didn't like to think about that. It didn't seem honorable to subvert the Crown's servants for her own purposes. There was something not quite right with a system where even the training master advised it, where something underhand and wrong was commonplace and accepted. She should hurry: she knew that she should, but she could not help standing and watching the training yard where she might never come again.

It wasn't simply the Post, or the way that everyone learned to put purely academic demands second, in spite of Sir Padraig's yearly exhortation to mental as well as physical excellence. Fianola watched the snow-dust in the cracks in the north-face wall, or the training of pages. She brushed a finger along an inlet, knocking out a little cold powder. Had the snow stayed here even through the thaw of this past week? The sun had been shining this morning when she had woken early to settle her accounts and give her room the final once-over. She looked up; now the sky was clouding over, although it was hard to tell if the sun was hidden or was simply low on the horizon behind the crenellated wall. They said that a woman could do anything that a man could do; there was Alanna the Lioness, and there, Lady Keladry. But really, you couldn't. Really, you had to endure a thousand poorly truncated vulgarities in the older pages, and the squires, and the men-at-arms and even the masters. Really, even if no one told you that you didn't belong, they looked askance at you, and were impressed when you beat them in archery, or lasted honorably in a bout of broadswords, or when you hit the quintain. Really, you had to pretend you didn't hear the comments they made about maids and the queen's ladies and even the queen, because to say something acknowledged that you didn't belong in this sphere anyway. The appearance simply did not match the reality.

It seemed good and true, but it was rotten underneath. Perhaps the rot had only been exposed now, with the king's murder. When she put it like this, Fianola did not feel so sad to be leaving. She was rather proud to recognize and reject the faulty appearance of truth. The words did not match the reality, anymore. It was odd how she had not come to think about these things until she so recently. Fianola knelt down and impulsively traced "WORDS" in the half-dirt half-ice. It had gotten cold. "FIANOLA," she wrote, admiring her script -- 'as neat as a scribe's or a lady's' someone had told her. "CHIVALRY." "GOOD."

"M'lady?"

"Only a moment more!" she called. The words expressed something old and beautiful, she thought: the Book of Gold, or the Code of Chivalry. They reflected a simplicity and a certainty that wasn't present in the world anymore. One could change the words, or one could try to change the reality. "A knight does not bend his ideals to fit the passing whim of anyone," Sir Padraig said, "but he keeps them straight and true, and trims the world to that guide of truth and justice." He had taught her more about ethics than any Mithran priest! But those lessons came back to her all the same. One could not say, "Let it be good that officers of the Post accept bribes to pervert their duties." But could one say, "Let the officers of the Post carry private messages and parcels"? That, too, seemed like bending the ideal. But one could send messages with friends and relatives; one could send parcels likewise, or take them oneself, or send them with merchants. Pages, perhaps, should bring no more than they themselves could carry when they came to the Palace. When she sent her sons, she would make them adhere to this rule.

And this was true for larger things as well. King Jonathan was dead; he had been killed by the son of a lady knight. Whatever she had said to Lady Alanna, it was difficult not so see Mithros's justice in the way her son had struck the king down. Lady Alanna had tried to match the words -- she had matched the words, as Lady Keladry matched them! They were glorious lady knights: strong, brave, loyal, just, and true! But the words did not match the reality. A boy who was the son of the realm's greatest knight was a traitor. Did blood mean nothing? Did breeding mean nothing? This was not the way the stories were, and it was not the way things should be.

But she could think about this later. Now she had to say her final farewell to the palace and make her journey. But as she tried to will herself to leave off thinking and follow her great-aunt's man, Fianola had the feeling that she was on the verge of making the past week's swirling thoughts cohere into something important and solid. If only she could formulate it, instead of circle around this not-quite -known center of her ponderings…

"Hey! Fianola!" She turned, startled, and her heart sank a little. Alberic. "I thought you had left already," the short stocky boy said when he caught up to her. He was a little out of breath. "Without saying goodbye, even. It's a lucky thing I caught you."

Mithros keep her she hadn't wanted this! Fianola bit her lip and blinked to keep the sudden tears out of her eyes. She had wanted to leave quietly, where all the tumult of the trial would make her absence go unnoticed until she was far away. It was as Lady Alanna had said: there was some shame. But she had sponsored Alberic of Groten, and they were friends; she supposed she ought to have taken leave of him. "Gods keep you, Alberic," she said, reaching to hug him. "I'll miss you."

"Don't know why you're leaving," Alberic said, his voice muffled for being pressed against her. "You're as good as anyone here, almost."

He didn't understand either. "That isn't it, Alberic," she said. "But I've realized that my duty lies elsewhere." She imagined for a moment that her words fell serenely on the younger page's ears; that he would remember them, and remember this moment when some Truth had been revealed to him through her self-sacrificing person. She was being ridiculous, she told herself even before Alberic cut her off.

"We never had that match, and now you're leaving."

The match. How could he have remembered that, when barely half a day later the king was dead and everything in disarray? How could he bring it up now?

It wasn't that Alberic didn't have tact, she explained to herself, but that he was oblivious to certain things when others were on his mind.

"I'll go get practice swords," he said.

"Alberic-- I'm already… I can't…" Fianola began, but he had started back across the court. "Alberic!" She shouted. "The match is off! I'm not a page anymore! There isn't time! I'm sorry." She bunched up her skirts in frustration as he seemed not to hear her. She couldn't… she wasn't dressed properly and, besides, it was thoroughly wrong to have a practice bout here and now. She had given this up, and Alberic surely had other duties he was shirking.

"Alberic," she said as he appeared once more. "I cannot do this. I cannot. Not here, so… informal."

He looked at her. "Why not?"

Fianola shook her head. "It's… disrespectful, with the king… Mithros be merciful…" Alberic followed her lead and traced the sign against misfortune on his chest. "Fighting isn't a contest, or… or a game. It's like Sir Padraig always said: approach combat with the same reverence in your heart that you hold for the altars of the Gods."

"This is practice," Alberic said, "and practice _is_ serious."

Why wouldn't he leave her alone? First Lady Alanna's lecture, and now this… she had made her decision. "Don't you understand?" Fianola said in anger, exasperated, "I am not going to be a knight; I AM NOT GOING TO BE A KNIGHT! Practice is useless to me!" Her voice broke off into a scream at the end, and she was crying. She sank down onto the court, realizing that Auntie Sebila would be furious if she arrived so disheveled and late, and that she wanted to keep training to be a knight. But it was too late to remedy either of these things…

A giant gap of blackness opened up. She did not feel grown-up and resigned any longer; that particular mask convenience had fallen away. Now, she would have to face the real passions that were fighting her acceptance of duty. But Fianola wondered explained the situation to herself if phrasing it that way wasn't simply making another false and glorified reconciliation…

An arm reached around her. "But I need to practice," Alberic said. "Please? Because you were my sponsor."

"I'm hardly in a state," Fianola began, but she couldn't help thinking that it would do well to go out having won a match. It would help -- something. " Oh, all right. But it will have to be quickly done." Alberic helped her to her feet. Her cloak and overrobe were hung from a protruding buttress, and she did her best to kirtle up the skirts of her underdress and knot them off to one side.

"I can see your garters," Alberic teased, blushing.

"And I can see you tied your points clumsily this morning," she replied. "Now give me one of those swords." Once she had the sturdy weight of a practice sword in her hand, she felt much better, and wished she had not skipped her drill this morning. With nearly four years to Alberic's scant one and a half, however, she had plenty of advantage.

As she and Alberic took their positions and saluted each other, Fianola felt late-Autumn chill. It was cold without an overrobe and cloak. But the exercise would warm her. She new she should end the match as soon as possible, but it seemed unfair to take advantage of Alberic's terribly patchy guard and score her touch right at the start. First strike. Hook. Feint-hook. Cross strike first. Squinting strike third. And then Alberic somehow found an opening to the strike himself, and she was on the defense. Now how had she let that slip through? Guard one. Long sword. Rage strike - scalp strike. If he hadn't ducked, she might have knocked him out. But the strike was back with her, now, and this time, she wouldn't be so kind. First. Fourth. First. Feint-second. First. And there! She forced the pommel of her sword around and against his and forced it out of his hand. "Yield."

He backed away from her sword. "I yield. But that's the last time you'll beat me."

Fianola smiled inwardly at his naïveté as she leaned her sword carefully against the wall. "It's the last time you'll fight me." The last time. No! It couldn't be the last time she would wield a sword… she was going to practice at home, and when she came to court, she was going to join the queen and her ladies in their morning sparring. It occurred to her suddenly that Queen Thayet might not continue to do that. She was _old_, after all, and after the king's murder… She pushed that thought from her mind. It would work out. If she could train as a night, she could make anything work out.

"I'll be waiting for you when you come back," he said, "and then I'll be a squire, and a proper swordsman, and then I'll beat you."

"But not if you don't learn to block overhead strikes," someone said. Fianola turned, startled. The king's squire was watching them. Alberic wrinkled up his face and looked down. Where had he come from -- who would be crossing the yard at this time? Had he watched the entire match? She wondered how many mistakes she had made, and how many openings she had left unblocked. The Lioness's son was reputed to be no poor swordsman -- he probably despised her like Lady Alanna did, and must be thinking that the Crown was well-rid of someone who was a clumsy as she had been.

"Please, sir," she said, "Do you have any criticism for me?" It must be the nearness of her departure that was making her this reckless.

Squire Alan looked a bit discomfited. 'Actually,' Fianola imagined him saying, 'your technique was flawless.' But that dream only lasted a moment, if it had ever been real. "You lag in recovery after strikes in Third," he said after a moment. "You left more than enough time for an enemy to kill you, between the strike and the next. If you don't know where you are going to attack next, always resume a guard as soon as possible. At least you'll protect yourself." He seemed even more embarrassed to have said so much. He bowed to her. "Gods keep you on your journey and give you happiness, my lady." A bell tolled the hour. Oh dear, she really would be late. Squire Alan seemed startled by the lateness as well. He looked at Alberic for a long moment. "Take this to King Roald," he said, handing him something, "and tell His Majesty that Alan of Pirate's Swoop is grateful for his kindness, and begs his pardon for not returning this in person." It seemed as if there was something more he wanted to say, but the squire simply nodded again and let his eyes flick from Alberic to Fianola and back to Alberic. "Don't lose it," he said at last, and with a final nod to Fianola, he left them, walking quickly across the remainder of the yard until he disappeared into the palace proper.

"What is it?" Fianola asked, trying to ignore the sudden hole in her stomach. She wasn't a page; she wouldn't be treated like a page… she was some sort of lady, now. Alberic opened his hand to show her a ring with the Conté seal.

The Conté seal! "He must trust you a lot."

"No," Alberic said. "He hates me; he's always really hard on my in training."

"That's probably because," Fianola said, rebuttoning her overrobe and putting on her best mother hen voice, "he recognizes that you've got talent and he wants to push you."

"I'm not really that good," Alberic said, "and I don't think he likes me at all."

"Nonsense."

"I will be waiting, when you come back, and I will beat you."

This time she smiled outwardly as well. "I'll miss you, Alberic." She hugged him, then picked up her cloak. "You'll write and tell me how everyone is? Whether they passed the examinations and who their knight-masters are?"

"Course I will."

"I'll write you, too." This was it. "Good luck!"

"And to you."

Fianola turned away before the farewell prolonged itself even farther, and walked through the archway to the stable yard.

"S'about time," her aunt's servant grumbled, but she ignored him. 'A knight should always be punctual.' Sir Padraig's words echoed in her mind. She could feel her cheeks flushing.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, "but it's hard to say goodbye." The servant grunted some sort of assent as he held offered a hand to help her mount. "Thank you; I've no need."

As they rode on towards the gates, Fianola looked back for Alberic, but he was already gone.

* * *

GRATUITOUS NOTE: Well, at last an end appears to be in sight for this story. I think I only have two more chapters, I've started them both, and I hope to upload soon! 


	19. Veralidaine Sarrasri Salmalìn

"_Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war  
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,_"  
--Henry IV Part One; II.iii

"I really think they're far too young for this," Veralidaine Sarrasri-Salmalìn whispered to her husband, propping herself up on the bolster with her elbows. They had hashed it out the evening before as she swept and he built up the fire, in hushed voices and spelled-out words at supper, and again late into the night while sitting on the hearth. But now, in the early gray morning, Daine had thought of something else. "Everyone'll think we're doing it as a warning -- making a moral lesson out of it," she continued. Mistress Sievers was taking her children for that reason. In principle, Daine did not think that such lessons were a terrible thing for a child. Numair claimed to have seen thieves and counterfeiters hang from the Bridge of the Damned in Tyra from as long as he could remember. 'Every morning,' he had said, 'I walked to Master Agrippa's school, and I walked by the bodies as if they were nothing more than a stray kitten.' These things stayed in one's memory: she would never forget Granda holding her shoulder while they watched Gallan soldiers in sun-glittering mail execute a group of bandits. In principle, again, there was not, perhaps, anything wrong with this. Children grew up seeing chickens and sheep slaughtered to be eaten – and chickens and sheep were innocent beings. To her, or to Sarralyn, a lamb was as full a spirit as a man. There was no reason to hold the death of a wicked human to have some sort of sacred nature that the death of an animal did not. And she could not think of a better way to impress the wrongness of such crimes. But here -- what clear lesson could be derived here? Thom of Pirate's Swoop had not had a traitor's heart. And when children were so young, when they might not even understand the import of death, there was never any good could come of the lesson of _any_ execution, let alone this one.

But, "They need to know," Numair had said again and again last night. "They need to know how powerful the crown is, and what the worst is that it can do. We're subjects of Tortall by choice, but Sarra and Rikash are born Tortallan. They need the example from us of what it means to serve a king and to be loyal." And so he had won her over in spite of herself. What Daine had always thought of as her country-bred plainness was revolted by pretending to the children that they approved of something that they truly witnessed only out of necessity. Only the need to show their own loyalty would bring her and Numair to stand in the crowd before the scaffold tomorrow -- today.

It wasn't that they _didn't_ approve, Daine checked herself mentally, except that, well, _she_ didn't; Numair didn't either, of course, nor did any of their university friends. To be sure, it was necessary -- tragic, but necessary. The Crown was well within its rights and the demands of justice. Maybe things had gotten out of hand at the University -- even Numair reluctantly admitted that there might be too freedom for the masters and their students -- and necromancy for whatever cause was condemned by the Gods: blasphemy as well as an affront to decency. Daine was not used to having decency conflict with her own feelings; she wasn't used to being outside the common experience or going against the authorized opinion. It wasn't, she told herself, that she was blindly obedient to tradition and authority – as the Wildmage, how could she be? -- but that the Contés were good and fair kings whose decisions accorded with the dictates of religion and common sense. Now, either the king was unjust -- a position she could not in her good faith as a subject take -- or her notions of right and wrong were skewed, and she was sure that they were not. Or it was that things were simply much more complicated than right and wrong. This kind of iffy morality had nothing to teach her children in the usual way, and they were too young to understand the more complex lesson proper to it.

"Numair," she said, "I really think it wouldn't--" But her husband's side of the mattress was empty. There were many nights that she had spent alone in the time they had lived -- and slept -- together. He would be setting up some experiment, or off in the Drell River Valley diverting the river's course, or she might be tucked in the fork of a desert tree as she gathered information on the Bazhir in bird form. But if one ever had to leave in the middle of the night, each always waked the other, particularly now that the children were old enough to ask questions about their parents' whereabouts. Daine pushed herself up to a sitting position; Ah, he had lit a candle in the main room: she could see it through the curtain. She ought to get up and find out what the matter was. If only it weren't so cold -- why had Numair let the heat-spell fade away? Or had he not set it last night? They had been talking, and perhaps he had forgotten. Oh don't be such a delicate city-dweller, she told herself. Ma had never cast a heat charming and Snowsdale was much farther north. It wasn't even winter, she scolded. With a small sigh, Daine turned the blankets back from her legs and got out of bed. Her house shoes were in their usual places; she scuffed them on as she arranged her shawl.

Sarralyn was sleeping soundly; Daine stood, transfixed as she always was, watching her daughter's small and perfect hands clutch the cloth doll Lady Eleni had given her for a gods-mother gift. Sarralyn's hair, as dark as her father's, spread out on the mattress. She couldn't. She couldn't take little Sarra to watch a man die. Daine knew that if she came too near Rikash's cradel, her son would wake. Sarralyn had not been nearly so fussy. Nevertheless, she could not resist looking in on Rikash, too, just in case. He, too, was fast asleep. A restive baby sleeping more surely at night than a hard-working man? There was something not right in the world when this was its way.

"Numair?" She whispered as she pulled back the curtain. He hadn't heard her, for there was no answer. Numair sat at the table; his head was in his hands. He didn't look up as she came around behind him: perhaps he did not see her. "Oh, Numair." Daine put her arms around her husband. As she held him, feeling his upper body shake with his suppressed crying, she wished that she hadn't been so ready to complain about the faded heating. "Oh, Numair, darling." There was nothing to say. It would not be all right. It would not all work out. The time for those consolations was past. "At least come sit by the fire with me, Dear-heart." She half-pulled him up and led him to the hearth with one hand and took his candle with the other. They had banked the fire for the night, but a little glow and warmth remained. "Yes," she murmured over and over as she rocked Numair as though he were little Rikash, "Yes, it _is_ terribly sad. And it isn't fair." Cradling her husband's head in her lap, Veralidaine stared into the darkening hearth. The fire that had blazed up to warm dinner and heat the kettle for the children's baths was barely-alive embers now. She knew that they _would_ get through this -- Numair, her family, the University -- but she could not see how.

* * *

NOTE: I know I promised to finish this soon, but I'm going to be away from a computer for a while, so the last few chapters may not come until August. 


	20. Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau

"_A partial slander sought I to avoid,  
And in the sentence my own life destroyed.  
Alas, I looked when some of you should say  
I was too strict to make mine own away."_  
--Richard II; I.iii

"They call me an unnatural mother," Alanna the Lioness said. She tried to keep her voice neutral, as if it was just an offhand comment or an observation about someone else -- and someone else's son. She could almost see her breath even now at late morning. "A monster, even, I heard Si-- someone -- say. Because I wouldn't plead for him, or argue for him, or --" Damn it all, her voice was getting shriller and more quavering.

Raoul patted her shoulder in more of a nervous tapping than a comforting gesture. "You did the only thing that could be done." He shrugged. "Unnatural? Perhaps so. But "natural" is no better than one of the Wildmage's clever animals. We can rise above our natures; maybe we should be 'unnatural'."

She knew where he had heard that. The archpriest had given a public sermon the day before: on the anniversary of General haMinch's return from the last Scanran wars. It surprised Alanna, that Raoul had heard it. "I didn't think you were so given to religious observance."

"Some things are true even if a priest says them."

"It was a good sermon," Alanna said. _Oh very well, my old friend_:_ talk on about a sermon and pretend that none of this is happening. _ But another part of her was glad Raoul had brought it up: better to talk about this than about what was to come. But Raoul only nodded his agreement. So much for that. "He spoke to Thom, you know," Alanna said suddenly. Why had she let that out? That was the last thing she wanted to talk about. She had found over the years that enforced numbness was the best cure for the vagaries of grief, and this time -- this day -- she was in especial need of that emotional passivity.

Raoul looked up, obviously unsure of what to say. And what could he say? What could she say?

"He is repentant," Master Abelard had told her last night. "He realizes full well that he cannot live, and that he should not live." At least so much of honor remained to him.

She had been resigned even before Thom had; she had been resolved from the beginning. The Goddess help her, her love for her king and her duty as a warrior and a vassal were greater than her love for her child. It was as the archpriest has preached: passions, particularly when they ran contrary to sure knowledge, were often opposed to rightness and virtue. Mithros and her Goddess were gods of reason and nobility. She was a soldier and a noble: dispassionate, not compassionate, and while woman might plead for her child's life, a vassal served the life of his lord. If a woman would prove herself a vassal, she had to give up the weaknesses commonly ascribed to women.

"I know my duty," Alanna said aloud. She did know. Her mind was clear; it was much clearer than she had thought it would be. Her thoughts were not clouded, nor her vision dulled with grief, although Thom's incrementally approaching death beat at her more than the sudden shock of the king's murder had. Indeed, she thought slowly and precisely. The needs of the kingdom before her happiness; the duties of a knight before her family; the freedom of her sex before the inclinations of her heart. It was as though she saw herself from the outside. She had lost her temper with Jonathan's politic diplomizing. When he had urged some compromise to appease an arch-conservative, she had not stood for it. Had she spent her indignation on matters of policy and have now none left for her son? She shuddered. This was it. This was what she was desperately trying to repress.

"Alanna?" She had forgotten that she sat with Raoul in this alcove. She tried to force it again below the surface of her conscience, but once up, it would not go back. She was a mother; Thom was her son. Thom was her son. Thom… "Your duty is an example to us all," Raoul said. Her duty? But ah, she had said something about duty, hadn't she? Alanna shook her head. If only she could scream, or could have hysterics, or could cry. But she had never been hysterical. Enraged and even irrational, but never hysterical. The clarity of thought was suddenly gone. She was muddled, and no single idea or image would hold. The Bazhir lining the streets on her and Jonathan's triumphant return from the Black City; Little Thom running to her arms at Pirate's Swoop; the way the words tumbled out when he talked about magic; Jonathan taking up a sword in the surprise Scanran raid and the awesome image of a Conte king who was still a warrior. She had chosen, but to what good end? Jonathan was dead. Thom was… alive. Had been alive. Irrationally, the chanted conjugations of some long-ago lesson in old Thak rolled through her mind. Pluperfect future active periphrastic: Had been going to be alive…

"I can't… I don't know what you're talking about," she said, turning away.

Raoul took her hands in his. "You have been so strong, so steadfast." He didn't understand at all. Alanna envied her long-time friend for the sharpness of his moral vision --here were no horrible shadows haunting him -- but she could not share it. "I have no idea how you are bearing it, Alanna," Raoul said. "If it were my son, I could not have done what you have; I could not watch."

And so. She had spent her life being better than men. She could outfight, out ride, and out-curse any other knight of the realm, even now. It had been the only way to prove that she was not less capable. And so. Now, to prove that she was as strong of mind, she had to be stronger. Better that they accuse her of being cold and unfeeling than that they should say that the Lioness was womanish and sentimental. And so.

"My lord, my lady." Alanna had not noticed the servant enter. He raised a glance to meet her eyes, but looked down quickly. Evidently, he did not enjoy this task. "It's nearly time, an' it please y'r honors."

"Go," Alanna said. "I will come after, in a moment. I will come," she repeated, as Raoul seemed to hesitate.

He bit his lip and briefly closed his eyes as he stood to take his leave. "Gods be with you, Alanna." With the shadow of a bow -- no more than a deeply inclined head -- he preceded the servant out. Alanna let out a breath as she watched him go. Only a few more moments now. A few moments of solitude. He was her closest friend -- the one at court most like herself, and now so unlike. Was this what it meant to be a woman in a man's world?

She could not watch, would not go. It would not be so hard, to walk inside to the chapel rather than out of the garden and to plead to the Mother Goddess for peace of mind. The Mother Goddess. Alanna knelt in sudden prayer, and she trembled at the implication only now understood. 'Oh, Great Lady, have you forsaken me because I forsook my duty as a mother? Forgive me; take what penalty you will, but forgive me, and ease my mind!' In her lifetime, more shrines had appeared to the Goddess as Mother of Mercy than in any other incarnation; and she: not merciful, and by her lack of mercy no true mother. The Goddess had spoken to her when she was yet a squire, and had told her to love.

It was a wintry-cold day, and the wind that blew dead leaves and dirt across the path where she knelt also made her tears feel cold on her cheeks. The Goddess had told her to love. How could she love a traitor to her king and to herself? But how could she not love her own son?

"What would you have me do, Lady?" she shouted at the sky. "What would you have had me do?" She had succeeded for the Goddess, and she had never forgotten her divine patroness. Every day the Great Mother had her thanks and her offerings, and now this turmoil in return. In a fit of anger at the injustice of it all, she tore the Goddess's ember-stone from its chain and threw it hard against the wall.

Alanna did not know what she expected to happen in that instant: for the crystal to shatter, perhaps, and for the Goddess to descend to her; or for a bonfire, a bolt of lightning -- some sign of divine anger, even of divine consciousness, to beat her mortal grief against. But there was nothing. The ember did not even flicker or dull as it snapped off the wall and fell to the dirt, its fire seeming to emanate heat into the cold air.

For a moment she imagined that a great burden would lift, and she would be freed of her doubts and troubles when the stone no longer weighed on her neck. It did not happen, of course. And, she reminded herself, she had never felt the Goddess's gift to be painful or weighty. None of the Goddess's gifts were. She supposed that the gods would not stir themselves to give their worshippers respite from purely human troubles. Of course she knew that. And she had never expected anything else; indeed she had not. But she was strong and she would bear it. This had all been but momentary weakness. Alanna wiped her eyes, stood up, and dusted off her clothes. She picked up her ember-stone and fastened it around her neck, willing its brightness to burn away these so many swirling thoughts of her son.

Alanna the Lioness walked out of the walled garden to stand with her friends and her king. But even a few moments in the cold had served to make the Goddess's charm chilly against her skin.

**FINIS**


End file.
